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Ad Alliance’s BigScreen Package: Uniting Linear and Digital TV in a Single Offering

17 September 2025

In a media landscape defined by fragmentation, convergence has become the holy grail for advertisers. For years, global platforms like Netflix, Disney, and YouTube have been pushing the boundaries of how video advertising is packaged and measured. Now, Germany’s leading sales house, Ad Alliance (the advertising arm of RTL Germany), is stepping up with a bold new proposition: the BigScreen Package.

The offer bundles, for the first time, the reach of linear TV (LTV), addressable TV (ATV), and connected TV (CTV) into a single, bookable product — complete with unified reporting and audience validation. It is designed to offer advertisers maximum visibility, data-driven efficiency, and predictability on the largest screen in the household.

To understand the strategic thinking behind this innovation, MoveTheNeedle.news spoke with Tim Nieland, General Director Product & Price at Ad Alliance, about why this launch matters and where the future of convergent advertising is headed.

Why Eurowings was the launch partner

Ad Alliance chose Eurowings, the Lufthansa-owned low-cost airline, as its first client for the BigScreen Package. According to Nieland, the fit was natural.

“Eurowings recently repositioned its brand with the lighthearted and humorous ‘Ich flieb’s’ campaign. The BigScreen Package allows them to stage this brand idea on a large scale, with high visibility and data-driven validation. Eurowings’ clear brand focus, creative approach, and emphasis on customer experience make it an ideal case study for demonstrating how reach, relevance, and measurable impact can be combined – and together with their media agency Publicis a perfect first-mover for the ‘Big Screen Package’.”

The airline’s repositioning was about tone, personality, and customer resonance. But it also made sense from a media innovation perspective: travel brands need both reach and precision. In that sense, Eurowings’ campaign was a perfect proving ground for Ad Alliance’s new format.

Solving measurement fragmentation

One of the toughest challenges in today’s hybrid media environment is measurement. Traditional TV ratings, addressable TV metrics, and streaming analytics all rely on different standards. That fragmentation has made it difficult for advertisers to track campaigns holistically.

Ad Alliance claims to have cracked the problem by integrating multiple data sources.

“The BigScreen Package delivers on its promise of ‘one offer, one booking, one reporting.’ It integrates data sources such as AGF, SmartX, and CrossVerify into a unified reporting system, providing cross-channel performance metrics. This ensures advertisers receive comparable KPIs across linear TV, addressable TV, and connected TV, overcoming the usual fragmentation between standards. Together with our national Joint Industry Committees (JICs) like AGF, we are currently also working on new standards for more comparable KPIs.”

For the international reader, AGF is Germany’s joint industry committee responsible for TV and video measurement. By anchoring the BigScreen Package in established national standards, Ad Alliance signals that this is more than just a pilot project — it’s a credible attempt to reshape the buying and reporting framework in Europe’s largest media market.

A new billing model: Target Group CPM

Another significant innovation is the way campaigns are billed. Traditionally, linear TV in Germany has relied on a spot-by-spot model, which is simple but limited. With the BigScreen Package, Ad Alliance is introducing contact-based billing based on Target Group Cost Per Mille (TG-CPM).

“Billing is based on validated target group contacts (Target Group CPM). This means advertisers only pay for impressions confirmed to be within their desired audience. Technically, this is enabled by combining data from AGF, SmartX, and CrossVerify, which together provide consistent measurement of reach and audience quality across all platforms.”

For advertisers used to the precision of digital platforms, this represents a meaningful shift. Paying only for validated impressions makes TV more accountable and brings it closer to the programmatic buying standards of the digital world.

AI and automation in media planning

Artificial intelligence has become an indispensable tool in modern media planning, and Ad Alliance is keen to emphasise its role in the BigScreen Package.

“Artificial intelligence supports the package with automated media planning, placement, and ongoing optimization. Tools like ‘Ad Alliance AdVise’ and the Cross Device Graph are used to validate audiences, forecast reach, and dynamically adjust delivery based on real-time data patterns.”

This brings TV closer to the kind of dynamic optimisation familiar from online advertising. For international advertisers watching the German market, this is a sign that European broadcasters are not standing still as Silicon Valley platforms refine their own programmatic offerings.

How it compares to global players

With Netflix rolling out ad-supported tiers, Disney expanding its advertising business, and Google/YouTube cementing dominance on connected devices, competition is fierce. Yet Nieland argues that Ad Alliance’s advantage lies in combining local reach and trust with convergent innovation.

“Unlike global players, the BigScreen Package combines linear TV, addressable TV, and connected TV into a single convergent, locally validated product. It merges traditional TV’s massive reach with digital precision, offering contact-based billing, KI-driven optimization, and unified reporting — specifically tailored to the German market and its established measurement standards. The CPM model for linear TV is a substantial transformation for the German market because the spot-by-spot model is still mainly used.”

Here, the emphasis is on local validation — something global platforms cannot always replicate in markets with entrenched national measurement standards.

Simplification without lock-in

When asked whether this package risks locking advertisers deeper into RTL’s ecosystem, Nieland rejects the idea.

“The package simplifies the buying process by offering a single booking and unified reporting, making campaigns easier to manage. While it makes processes easier, less complex und comparable, it does not lock advertisers any deeper into our ecosystem.”

In other words, the value proposition is efficiency and clarity rather than exclusivity. This is important for advertisers wary of walled gardens.

The end of “TV vs. streaming”?

Perhaps the most striking takeaway from the interview is Nieland’s conviction that the line between linear and streaming advertising is already dissolving.

“The BigScreen Package is a key element of Ad Alliance’s convergence strategy (‘CrossOver Evolution’), uniting linear and digital Big-Screen reach in a single offer. This clearly indicates that the traditional distinction between linear and streaming advertising is becoming less relevant, moving the industry toward the ‘Total Video Spot’ concept. We can’t think of ‘TV vs. Streaming’ any longer, because people find and watch their lovebrands on any kind of way they prefer. As a publisher, we have to adapt to these user habits and improve our sales portfolio, so the advertisers also reach their clients wherever they watch. While doing so, we still believe in the power of the Big Screen and its huge impact and relevance within the media mix.”

This “Total Video Spot” concept captures the industry’s trajectory. For viewers, the shift is invisible; for advertisers, it means rethinking campaign planning around content and audience, not channels.

Looking ahead: Total Video Spot

While the BigScreen Package focuses on TV, Ad Alliance’s ambitions go further.

“Next in our convergence strategy, we plan to launch the Total Video Spot as the final step towards a fully convergent total video product – with regard to our streaming service RTL+, it will also contain desktop and mobile.”

The trajectory is clear: from convergence within the big screen, to convergence across all screens. For advertisers, this means that the efficiency of unified buying and reporting will eventually extend to mobile and desktop as well.

Strategic significance

From an international perspective, the BigScreen Package is significant for several reasons:

  1. Innovation within a traditional market: Germany has been slower than some markets to adopt CPM-based billing in TV. This move signals a major shift in how television inventory is monetised.

  2. Local resilience against global giants: By leveraging established measurement standards and trust in local broadcasters, Ad Alliance offers an alternative to the dominance of US-based platforms.

  3. Proof of convergence in practice: While “total video” has been an industry buzzword for years, this package puts it into operation at scale.

  4. A blueprint for other markets: If successful, the model could influence broadcasters and sales houses across Europe.

Conclusion

The launch of Ad Alliance’s BigScreen Package underscores how television — long thought of as a “legacy” medium — is reinventing itself for the convergent era. By unifying linear, addressable, and connected TV into a single product, and underpinning it with AI-driven optimisation and cross-platform measurement, Ad Alliance is offering advertisers something both familiar and new: the reach of traditional TV, with the accountability of digital.

As Tim Nieland puts it, the goal is no longer to distinguish between TV and streaming. Instead, it’s about meeting audiences wherever they watch, while maintaining the impact and trust of the big screen.

For advertisers navigating an increasingly complex media ecosystem, this is more than a new product — it’s a signpost toward the future of convergent video.