BuzzFeed, Group Nine Media, Insider to form ad alliance

BuzzFeed, Group Nine Media and Insider are grouping their video ad space, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The companies plan to work together to better face off against Alphabet-owned YouTube and other platforms, the paper reported. The alliance will sell ads for the firms’ websites, apps and YouTube channels, according to the companies, the paper said.

The three are talking to Discovery and other media operations about participating in the effort, according to WSJ, citing sources at BuzzFeed, Group Nine and Discovery.

The yet-unnamed alliance will sell advertising independently and on-board publishers will share revenue tied to the number of ads they bring to the alliance, the paper said.

YouTube is the top seller of digital video ads. Amazon, Facebook and Snap are growing players in the industry.

BuzzFeed, Group Nine and Insider count almost 100 million subscribers for their YouTube networks and get over a billion video views monthly on their own sites and apps, WSJ said.

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