Resellers Crackdowns Are A Good Thing, Right? Well, Maybe Not For Indie CTV Publishers | AdExchanger

"The Trade Desk, which already had a strict no-resellers policy in place for its TV and video inventory, updated its policies in August to further define all supply-side platforms as resellers, too. CTV startup Vibe.co made a similar move in November by cutting out all supply-side resellers, and Cadent announced a week ago that all the CTV supply paths in its SSP product are now direct."

"To hear them tell it, weeding out resold inventory is a clear win-win: cleaner pipes, less fraud and more transparency. But that neat narrative falls apart for smaller independent CTV publishers that depend on resellers and other intermediaries to monetize what little inventory they actually control. For them, these crackdowns look less like a cleanup and more like yet another revenue squeeze. Small publishers under pressure The situation, however, is nuanced. Reselling has become a necessary evil for CTV publishers."

"Most independent CTV publishers distribute their content through third-party free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) services, like The Roku Channel, Samsung TV+, Paramount-Skydance-owned Pluto TV or Xumo, a joint venture between Comcast and Charter Communications. Publishers typically negotiate with these services based on inventory shares, where distributors control a percentage of a publisher's inventory (usually around 50%) to sell ads against."

DSPs and SSPs are pushing intermediaries and resellers out of CTV supply chains in favor of direct publisher integrations. The Trade Desk updated policies to define supply-side platforms as resellers, Vibe.co removed supply-side resellers, and Cadent moved its SSP CTV supply paths to direct. Sell-side platforms present the changes as delivering cleaner pipes, less fraud and greater transparency. Many smaller independent CTV publishers rely on resellers and intermediaries to monetize limited inventory. Most independents distribute via FAST services like The Roku Channel, Samsung TV+, Pluto TV or Xumo under inventory-share deals that often give distributors roughly 50% control, creating revenue pressure for publishers.

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