MAGNA GLOBAL Partners with WideOrbit and Tribune Media Company to Accelerate Programmatic Buying for Local Market Television

Alliance Creates End-to-End Programmatic Solution and Allows Clients to Buy Local Television Audiences at Scale New York, NY, September 9, 2014 - MAGNA GLOBAL, the media investment unit of IPG Mediabrands, in cooperation with strategic partners WideOrbit and Tribune Media Company, today announced the launch of WideOrbit's WO Central, which offers programmatic targeting and automated buying to both local and national marketers.

In addition to Tribune Media, a member of the MAGNA Consortium, major local TV owners including Hearst, Meredith, Raycom, Scripps and Sinclair and have agreed to participate in upcoming tests of WO Central's functionality and performance.

Powered and developed exclusively by WideOrbit in collaboration with MAGNA GLOBAL and Tribune Media, the new technology introduces the first-ever live environment for trading linear television station inventory across customized geographic areas ranging from specific DMA footprints to total US coverage.

WO Central's strong technical foundation combines the reach of WideOrbit's dominant local TV footprint (WideOrbit is the inventory and revenue optimization system of record across more than 70% of Television stations in North America, as well as approximately 15% of Radio stations and 30+% of Cable Networks reaching 99% of all US households) with the capabilities of WO Traffic, the industry's leading ad traffic and revenue management system. Furthermore, in keeping with the concept of programmatic placement, the system incorporates and overlays direct automated feeds from the industry's most sophisticated local and national audience analysis tools: Nielsen's Local Buyer Reach (LBR) and IPG Mediabrands' Audience Measurement Platform (AMP).

New to the market this year, Nielsen's Local Buyer Reach gives IPG clients the ability to identify local audiences across 40+ buyer categories in all 210 DMAs by linking proprietary Nielsen local television viewing data with actual consumer transactions and auto registrations.

AMP, IPG's propriety cross-platform data stack, merges client data with household level viewing data and online behavior to measure both ad exposure and effectiveness.

Now, empowered by the combination of an active platform and actionable audience insights, IPG buyers are equipped to deliver data-directed, target-rich TV schedules with unprecedented efficiency.

The value of our enterprise with WideOrbit extends beyond the immediate and significant benefits of automated process and accelerated report output. It is an opportunity to better serve our clients by replacing legacy conventions with modern, performance-based metrics in a system built for continuous optimization and iterative improvement. said Janice Finkel-Greene, EVP, Buying Analytics, MAGNA GLOBAL.

We strongly believe in using enhanced audience analytics to create customized and automated solutions for advertisers, said Keith Bowen, Chief Revenue Officer for Tribune Media. We look forward to working with Magna to get a much deeper understanding of our audiences and improve the ability of our clients to target opportunities across the 50 million households reached by Tribune Media's broadcast stations

Since its inception, WideOrbit has been committed to making it easier to buy and sell media. Accordingly, we are honored that MAGNA selected WideOrbit for this important strategic initiative. By providing a programmatic solution that allows agencies to perform targeted, data-driven, audience buys across markets, and delivers real-time analytics and audience insight for on-the-fly optimization, we're creating a brand new revenue stream for our television station partners, while allowing them to control precisely what they choose to sell through our platform, said Eric R. Mathewson, Founder and CEO of WideOrbit.

This strategic partnership with WideOrbit and Tribune to deliver the industry's first dynamic programmatic platform for local TV plays a key role in our commitment to automate at least 50 percent of all North American media transactions by the end of 2015. By integrating data and technology into everything we do, we can make smarter, faster decisions for our clients that drive business impact, said Matt Seiler, Global CEO, IPG Mediabrands.

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About MAGNA GLOBAL

MAGNA GLOBAL is the strategic global media unit of IPG Mediabrands, comprised of two key divisions.

MAGNA GLOBAL Investment harnesses the aggregate power of all IPG media investments to create power and leverage in the market, drive savings and efficiencies, and ultimately make smarter, more effective media investments on behalf of our clients.

With a stated goal of reaching 50% automated buying by 2016, the team in North America invests across digital, programmatic, broadcast and all traditional media platforms and is therefore considered the most comprehensive buying and negotiating unit in the media industry. The architects of the MAGNA Consortium - a powerful committee of executives from A&E Networks, AOL, Cablevision, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, ESPN and Tribune - MAGNA North America is also dedicated to shaping industry automation and audience specific buying.

MAGNA GLOBAL Intelligence has set the industry standard for more than 50 years by predicting the future of media value. MAGNA GLOBAL Intelligence produces more than 40 annual reports on audience trends, media spend and market demand, and ad effectiveness.

MAGNA GLOBAL has offices in 24 countries around the world. For more information, please visit www.magnaglobal.com or follow us @MAGNAGLOBAL.

About IPG Mediabrands

We were founded by Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) in 2007 to manage all of its global media related assets. Today that means we manage and invest $37 billion in global media on the behalf of our clients, employ over 8,500 diverse and daring

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