Cable Companies Are Taking a Page Out of Google's Playbook to Launch Targeted Ads
At a passing glance, the news seems inconsequential: Cable companies Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), and ViacomCBS (NASDAQ: VIAC) (NASDAQ: VIAC.A) all now co-own consumer data-collection and anonymization company Blockgraph. All three cable names need data to maximize the effectiveness of the television commercials they air. Blockgraph is a way of organizing it. But this is a bigger deal than it may seem on the surface.
The amicable co-ownership among three rivals within a highly competitive industry indicates that all three big cable titans agree on at least one thing: Highly granulated digital data is the future of TV. While it's unlikely the trio of television powerhouses will ever know as much about you as Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) or Facebook does, the big TV middlemen are taking a huge step in that direction.
Blockgraph was launched by Comcast in 2017, when the company first realized the cable television industry would soon face the moral hazard many web companies have tangled with for years: How much personal data can you collect about a consumer before it becomes too much and too personal?
Source Fool.com
