Blue Ant Media has acquired Media Pulse, a Canadian market for connected TV (CTV) placements.

Based in Canada, Media Pulse aggregates and curates inventory across popular and niche connected TV apps, platforms and multichannel video distributors. Media Pulse’s CTV exchange is powered by the Column6 ad platform. In addition to Media Pulse, Blue Ant uses Column6 for CTV ad serving and ad break management for some of its FAST channel inventory.

Media Pulse will become a standalone entity under the Blue Ant Media umbrella, with Christopher Law and Deborah Gurofsky continuing to lead the company as managing director and VP, partnerships, respectively. They will report directly to Mitch Dent, SVP, media sales and group publisher for Blue Ant.

Dent says that Blue Ant has already invested heavily in global FAST channel launches, so extending its capabilities in CTV for advertisers makes strategic sense. He further claims that Blue Ant believes that connected TV (CTV) is the most exciting space in the ad industry and an outstanding growth opportunity.

“The combination of effective 30-second advertising storytelling, specifically targeting ‘hard to reach’ audiences like cord cutters, is a market that has outstanding potential. Media Pulse lets advertisers use digital targeting against broadcast quality content. Even better, the non-skippable 30-second ad formats are gold, an amazing contrast to the very short skippable formats that typically count for digital video views from the large international players,” says Dent.

The number of CTV viewers is growing rapidly in Canada, providing advertisers with a significant opportunity to reach audiences. According to eMarketer, 63% of Canadian households already own a CTV device and it is estimated that CTV households will grow to 82% globally by 2023. eMarketer further reports CTV ad spending will surpass C$1 billion in 2023, up almost sevenfold from five years ago.

To date, Media Pulse claims it has seen 2.2 billion advertising impressions per month across CTV devices from its direct-to-publisher relationships. Media Pulse joins Blue Ant Media’s existing advertiser offering, which includes targeted and customizable advertising solutions across its broadcast, print and digital brands such as T+E, Cottage Life, MobileSyrup, and Animalogic.