If you’re trying to figure out whether the streaming marketplace will figure out ad-supported models, The Trade Desk’s Q1 2022 earnings call is a great place to start. I wrote about it in writing Friday’s essay Marketplace Disconnects Between Disney+ With Ads & Advertiser Demand.

Read the opening monologue from CEO Jeff Green on how Q1 2022 saw “more positive changes in a short period of time” in the TV landscape than he can remember. It’s also about how the death of cookies and app tracking have resulted in “a very unique opportunity to upgrade the Internet”. 

It’s not a right or a wrong take: it’s ultimately a sales pitch for The Trade Desk’s story of gaining market share and long-term vision to become “the de facto DSP of the open Internet, led by CTV [Connected TV].”

But, as I have highlighted in past mailings, the linear ad marketplace continues to resist evolution. As this week’s upfronts will highlight, Green’s bullish vision has some real structural obstacles to it.