Live Is Getting Its Own Bidstream Signal: What Sports and CTV Sellers Should Do

On April 28, IAB Tech Lab released for public comment new OpenRTB and AdCOM attributes for describing live content, along with a new substitution macro for passing price information back to buyers. Comments are open through May 28, 2026. The work came out of the Tech Lab's Programmatic Supply Chain Commit Group.

Live inventory has been among the hardest things to buy programmatically with confidence. The proposal is a direct attempt to fix that, and sports and CTV sellers should pay attention before the comment window closes.

What the proposal covers

OpenRTB has long carried a simple flag on the content object indicating whether content is live. A single yes-or-no field does not capture how live content is actually distributed. The proposal clarifies the existing field and adds two optional fields that let sellers distinguish between:

• content happening at the moment the bid request is sent,
• content streamed in real time but not necessarily live, and
• content in its first scheduled broadcast window.

The difference matters to buyers. A live game, a stream of a game that ended an hour ago and the first airing of a scheduled show can all look live to a single flag, but they carry different value for advertisers paying for the moment.

The macro update refines how price-related data is passed so sellers can communicate discounts and net pricing more clearly to DSPs. In the announcement, The Trade Desk's Rob Hazan said live content signals help the company “better understand the context of live inventory so we can deliver buyers' budgets effectively.”

Why it is happening now

More live and near-live programming is being sold programmatically, especially on CTV. The Trade Desk's first-quarter results, published May 7, highlighted Paramount announcing live, in-game programmatic buying for select commercial units within marquee sporting events. When premium live inventory enters the programmatic pipe, buyers need to know exactly what they are bidding on, and sellers need a way to be paid for it.

How liveness changes the buyer's math

For a buyer, live content is valuable for reasons that do not apply to on-demand video. Audiences watch in real time, so an ad reaches people during the moment rather than days later. Viewers are less likely to skip ahead, because there is often nothing to skip to. And for many brands, association with a live event is itself the point of the buy. Those reasons explain why live sports carries premium pricing in traditional TV.

Programmatic buyers have struggled to apply the same logic because the bid request did not say enough. If a DSP cannot tell a live game from a replay, it either bids conservatively on everything labeled live or excludes it. Both outcomes hurt sellers. Clearer signals allow buyers to bid with confidence on the real thing, and give sellers grounds to hold a premium floor on inventory that earns it.

The same clarity cuts the other way. Sellers who label replays as live today may see that inventory repriced once buyers can tell the difference. Honest labeling now protects credibility later.

What sports and CTV sellers should check

1. How you label live today. Pull sample bid requests from live streams, replays and scheduled programming. Is the live flag set, and is it set correctly? Many setups mark everything from a live channel as live, or nothing at all.
2. Where the signal is set. On CTV, the bid request is often built by a server-side ad insertion system or ad server rather than the player. Find out which system populates content fields and whether it has access to real schedule data.
3. Content metadata beyond liveness. Genre, series and episode, content rating, language and channel or network identifiers all help buyers value inventory. Sparse content objects make live inventory look like generic video.
4. Pricing live versus replay. If live inventory is worth more, floors and deals should reflect it. The new fields will make it easier to price live and near-live separately. Start by segmenting current reporting by liveness to see how buyers already value it.
5. Ad break readiness. Live breaks are unpredictable in timing and length, so pod structure, fill and decisioning time matter more than on demand. Check how often live breaks go unfilled or partly filled.

Web sports publishers are not exempt

This is not only a CTV issue. Sports sites run live blogs, live scores and embedded video around games, traffic spikes during events, and advertisers want to be present in those moments. The new fields are aimed at video content, but the principle carries over to the web: describe context accurately, keep content metadata current, and make it easy for buyers to reach live moments through deals. Sports publishers who package live-event inventory into private marketplace deals, with a clear definition of what counts as live, give buyers a reason to pay more.

Take part in the comment period

Comment periods exist so the people who will implement a standard can flag problems before it is final. If you sell live inventory, check whether the proposed definitions match how your content is actually distributed and whether your systems can populate the fields. Comments can be submitted through the Tech Lab's live signals page until May 28.

The takeaway

Better live signals will help premium inventory get priced as premium, but only for sellers who populate them correctly. Audit how you describe live content today, find which system owns those fields, and segment reporting by liveness so you can price it. When the specification is final, you will be ready to use it on day one.