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Microsoft Media Chief Asks Cable Nets to Vet eBay Marketplace

Microsoft’s global media director, David Grubb, said that the committee pushing the eBay Media Marketplace may indeed have failed to communicate properly with cable networks. Cable executives have complained that the process should have been more collaborative all along, though they haven’t ruled out the option of participating.

“It’s important that we do a better job of communicating, more clearly and directly, about exactly what we see this marketplace helping us solve,” Grubb is quoted as saying in MediaPost. He admitted that the committee had delayed allowing the cable industry a review, and suggested a face-to-face meeting to clear the air and to begin working together toward a launch.

The committee for the eBay Media Marketplace, created as a way to buy and sell TV time online, is focusing on cable rather than broadcast television, at least for now.

Grubb believes that, as the marketplace begins to operate, it will have a snowball effect, with more and more sellers signing up as they see their colleagues using it with success. He hopes that it will be launched within weeks, rather than months.