ABC has hired the network’s first head of programmatic and data-driven ad sales, tapping Mike Dean from the online video ad platform Videology for the post, Advertising Age reports.

Dean, who also spent time at Bing, will report to Pooja Midha, senior vice president of digital ad sales and operations at ABC. The hire comes after ABC said in May that it would start testing new data-driven ad sales for its online video inventory.

“ABC's summer trial for online inventory doesn't include staples of programmatic tech such as real-time bidding and open exchanges, nor does it involve commercial time on TV,” the story notes. “Instead the near-term goal is to let advertisers apply data to their purchases in ABC content, something that has been difficult to do, and move toward some of the automation that is common in digital ad sales.”

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Mike Dean