I've always been proud to be a life-long broadcaster, with my earliest exposure going back to a part-time after school job at the local television station in my small market hometown. Little did I know then that those teenage steps toward adult responsibility would lead me to invaluable experience in work and life, working for small, mid and large market broadcast companies, with the vast majority of experience at the ABC owned station in San Francisco. Traffic, inventory management, and coming up with reporting and workflow efficiencies for my team was both my passion and my challenge back in the day. Data was seemingly held hostage by disparate computer systems, none of which seemed to talk to one another and certainly didn't roll-up to corporate, resulting in endless redundancies.
I met Eric Mathewson in 1999 when he founded WideOrbit. I was both impressed and skeptical of his grand vision of an exchange to make is easier to buy and sell media. Central to this vision was the need to have a solid foundation where the data lived: traffic, sales and billing, and let's not forget reporting! With my colleagues from broadcasting and a group of start-up software engineers we set out to change the traffic world. It was a whirlwind experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. I vividly remember the day that I met Bill Offeman (now Will Offeman), when he showed us a prototype revenue report using this very cool feature called group panel . That feature changed everything in our approach to access data for our customers and was truly revolutionary at the time. Perhaps more pedestrian now, but no doubt it remains most customers' favorite feature, no matter the task.
Now many years removed from that WideOrbit start-up experience and concentrating on US local broadcast media, I am thrilled to be focused on building from those products to accommodate both linear and digital inventory types across any sales channel, all over the world. Over these 20 years, we've branched out well beyond our local television and radio roots, solving challenges for cable and broadcast networks, satellite services and international markets. But at the core of each solution is some form of the WO Traffic system that started it all. The nuances and the idiosyncrasies of the media world make ad operations tricky - not just how we store, access and manage the petabytes of data per client, but more so knowing how each step has to be executed in the most efficient manner in order to assure the next step is executed at the same level of efficiency.
To further complicate matters, our clients require workflow efficiency across linear AND digital media types, simultaneously. The workflows are not the same, nor are they executed at the same pace and content consumption is drastically different across mediums. We've had a fully comprehensive platform for digital audio in place for years now with our WO Streaming, WO On Demand and WO Programmatic Digital Audio products. A little-known fact: WideOrbit serves over 10 billion digital ad impressions each year! Currently, we are adding to that Digital Ad Solution in order to handle digital video inventory the way WO Traffic does for linear TV inventory. Starting with our existing Digital Orders and Multicast modules within WO Traffic, we are building ad decisioning and serving functionality in order to support live streaming, time-shifted podcasting, and advanced targeting of addressable ads for OTT and ATSC3.0. It's clear that our clients' need to monetize both linear & digital inventory are a priority for WideOrbit to address.
If the next 20 years at WideOrbit are anything like the past 20, we will be solving some sizeable hurdles for the media industry with regards to taking the best of digital and marrying it with the best of linear. That's easier said than done, and consumers will always be moving targets for advertisers. But if there's anything I can say about WideOrbit during my tenure - you can be sure we won't shy away from those challenges.
Arden Adair is Director of Product Management and she has been with WideOrbit since 2000. She is a former broadcast TV traffic manager who was recruited to leverage her real-life media operations experience in shaping WideOrbit's products. Visit https://www.wideorbit.com/products/#broadcast-traffic billing to learn more about WideOrbit's flagship traffic products.
Coming up next Part 4 of 5: Our Chief Technology Officer shares his thoughts on the various system architectures that can assure WideOrbit's software is optimized for performance.
For press inquiries, contact media@wideorbit.com.
North America Stories
30/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/01/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Hosts the National Opera Association's 2026 C...
30/01/2026
Student Spotlight: Sriram Narayanan The classical pianist shares his experience growing up with a language disability and finding his voice through music.
Ja...
29/01/2026
MELBOURNE, Fla., January 29, 2026 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) reports fu...
29/01/2026
Bluey' Wins Second Consecutive Top Streaming Title of the Year with 45 Billi...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/01/2026
Boston Conservatory Orchestra Presents East Coast Premiere of Peter and Leonardo...
29/01/2026
Mercedes-Benz is marking 140 years of automotive innovation with a new S-Class b...
29/01/2026
Back to All News
Love is Blind: Sweden Returns for a Third Season - Premiering ...
29/01/2026
Back to All News
Unmask Bridgerton' Season 4 With Our Complete Coverage Guide
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton in Season ...
29/01/2026
Back to All News
Extraordinary Crime Mysteries, Mythical Worlds and High-Stakes...
29/01/2026
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
29/01/2026
Get ready to game - the native GeForce NOW app for Linux PCs is now available in beta, letting Linux desktops tap directly into GeForce RTX performance from the...
28/01/2026
Top L-R: The Liars, Jazz Infernal, Living with a Visionary
Second Row L-R: Paper Trail, The Baddest Speechwriter of All, Crisis Actor
Third Row: The Boys and ...
28/01/2026
Airlines, cruise and tour operators double down on ad spend as Australians' prioritise travel
Sydney January 28, 2026 - New Nielsen Ad Intel data shows a...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Marshall Electronics launches the CV420-27X, its next-generation ultra-high-definition (UHD) IP camera, at ISE 2026 (Stand 4N900). Engineered for modern IP-base...
28/01/2026
Grass Valley has announced that Television Mobiles Ltd. (TVM), one of Europe's leading independent outside broadcast providers, has carried out a major refu...
28/01/2026
AI, graphics and virtual software power new production capabilities
FOR-A is bringing remarkable new technologies to FOMEX, the Future of Media Exhibition (ex...
28/01/2026
Continuing a longstanding collaboration, Riedel Communications and Nordic media technology company Media Tailor have once again joined forces to deliver a state...
28/01/2026
Pebble has appointed Paul Nagle-Smith as vice president for customer fulfilment, strengthening its senior leadership focus on customer delivery and operational ...
28/01/2026
Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset has announced that leading Mexican broadcaster, TV Azteca is using Veset Nimbus on AWS as a disaster recovery (DR) playo...
28/01/2026
Ensuring it can keep pace with a rapidly evolving live sports market, Balkan broadcast facility provider MVP Most Valuable Production has upgraded its flags...
28/01/2026
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud solutions provider that powers and protects life online, and Yospace, the leader in dynamic ad insertion tec...
28/01/2026
The renowned Reykjavik City Theatre (RCT) recently underwent a major intercom system upgrade using Clear-Com solutions. This milestone project utilizes Clear-C...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
28/01/2026
Boston Conservatory Orchestra Premieres a New Piano Concerto by Peter and Leonar...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix's Kohrra Season 2 Unveils A Thrilling Whodunnit Tr...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
What Next? Netflix Presents the Latest German-Speaking Series,...
28/01/2026
Quantum technologies are rapidly emerging as foundational capabilities for economic competitiveness, national security and scientific leadership in the 21st cen...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
The Wait Is Over: Teaser Trailer Drops for Jo Nesbo's Dete...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces a Fictional Miniseries Inspired by the Marta del Castillo Case
Entertainment
28 January 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to ...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Announces Santiago Mitres New Film Starring Ver nica L...
28/01/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the Teaser Trailer for Berlin and the Lady wit...
27/01/2026
L-R: Jonathan Cuchacovich, Sonia Kennebeck, Alan Fischer, Daeil Kim, Andrew Sta...
27/01/2026
Nielsen will continue to drive growth and provide local audience measurement
in...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
27/01/2026
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Pinterest
Bluesky
Email...
I've always been proud to be a life-long broadcaster, with my earliest exposure going back to a part-time after school job at the local television station in my small market hometown. Little did I know then that those teenage steps toward adult responsibility would lead me to invaluable experience in work and life, working for small, mid and large market broadcast companies, with the vast majority of experience at the ABC owned station in San Francisco. Traffic, inventory management, and coming up with reporting and workflow efficiencies for my team was both my passion and my challenge back in the day. Data was seemingly held hostage by disparate computer systems, none of which seemed to talk to one another and certainly didn't roll-up to corporate, resulting in endless redundancies.
