Advanced TV & Digital
Simulcast
The simultaneous broadcasting of the exact same content across multiple mediums (e.g., terrestrial RF radio and a digital web stream).
What is Simulcast?
Simulcasting means airing identical content across multiple distribution paths at the same moment. A radio station simulcasts its terrestrial FM signal to its own web stream, mobile app, smart-speaker skills, aggregator platforms like TuneIn, and often into branded podcast feeds. For the listener, the experience is the same content regardless of device.
The ad-inventory implications are genuinely complicated. Terrestrial FM commercials are broadcast to everyone tuned in via radio; the digital simulcast may serve a different ad set because of rights restrictions, targeting capabilities, or publisher choice. Broadcasters often operate entirely separate programmatic stacks for the simulcast stream, even though the programming is identical to the broadcast signal.
Why it matters
Broadcasters must often manage entirely separate ad inventories for the RF simulcast versus the digital stream due to differing licensing rights.
Related terms
- ACR (Automatic Content Recognition)— Technology embedded within Smart TVs that visually or acoustically scans what is playing to identify the exact content or commercials.
- Brand Safety / Suitability— Technologies and guidelines ensuring an advertiser's commercial does not appear adjacent to offensive, violent, or highly controversial content.
- Contextual Targeting— Placing ads based on the specific, thematic subject matter of the content being consumed, rather than tracking the user's history.
- Programmatic TV / Audio— The automated, machine-to-machine buying and selling of broadcast ad inventory through complex algorithms and real-time bidding systems.