March 27, 2008

Fora.tv taps Winstar to develop interactive ad platform

According to Brian Gruber, founder, president and CEO of Fora.tv, Winstar will sell straight ad buys, typical banner ads and exclusive channel sponsorships. Among these, Pfizer sponsors its health and wellness channel and Chevron sponsors its energy channel.

“This is a unique opportunity for advertisers,” Gruber said. “Instead of buying advertising, they're buying a platform where they can advertise and own content and discussions in their sponsored content areas.”

Gruber added that the partnership will allow Fora.tv to deliver a more sophisticated metrics package to advertisers. “We are able to show how many views there are per program, ads on the front page, as well as the channel,” Gruber said, “and deliver a complete view as to where the traffic is.”

Fora.tv generates its content through an international network of content providers such as C-SPAN and the Aspen Institute.

“Advertisers come to us because we offer an elite, trusted environment where all content is added through institutions that deliver it directly to us,” Gruber said. “We chose Winstar because they have a terrific team of salespeople who are focused on selling to high-value demographic audiences,” Gruber said.

Winstar has also created customized ad platforms for the Associated Press and Zagat Survey.

San Francisco, CA-based Fora.tv houses more than 2,000 long-form videos on political, business, technological and cultural issues.