iHeartMedia to Acquire Programmatic Platform Jelli

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, November 19, 2018

iHeartMedia has entered into an agreement to acquire Jelli Inc., a technology company that powers its SoundPoint programmatic platform. As part of the deal, Jelli will continue to operate as a company within iHM led by President/CEO Michael Dougherty and his team. The Jelli division will continue to be based in Silicon Valley and becomes iHM's primary ad technology operation. In addition, "Expressway from Katz," a programmatic buying ad exchange for radio groups, will continue to remain independently run by Katz, powered by Jelli.

"Facebook and Google pioneered a new way for advertisers to interface with media partners to improve targetability, the ease of buying and measurement of results, and our programmatic platform puts us in the position to participate in the modern data driven ecosystem for our broadcast radio audience as well as our digital audiences," said iHeartMedia SmartAudio and Analytics Group President Brian Kaminsky. "We have been excited by the advances we made with Jelli as our partner and the acceptance from our advertising partners."

"At iHeartMedia we believe marketing is both math and magic.t The math is our rich data and insights about our users and how they relate to our partners' products and services -- and the magic is the incredible creative ideas we bring to our partners, such as our iconic music events, award shows, influencers, podcasts, social reach and our unique on air promotions. Jelli allows us to do something no other company can do -- advertisers can now buy and use our broadcast assets, reach and impact just as they use the major digital players. We now offer heavy data and heavy creative innovation all in one place," said iHeartMedia Bob Pittman.

"By pairing iHeartMedia's reach and multiplatform assets with our cloud-based advertising technology, we are positioned to provide a single platform for advertisers to reach all audiences, no matter where they are consuming audio," said Jelli co-founder/CEO Michael Dougherty. "As audio consumption continues to explode, we are thrilled to be joining the iHeartMedia team, accelerating Jelli's mission of transforming audio advertising through technology innovation."