Star, Zee and Times of India have picked up equity stake in the company floated by Dentsu, which is preparing to launch its media booking website lastminuteinventory.com (they’ve booked the domain). The company is targeting Rs. 100 crore in the first year, and may even consider an IPO. As per moneycontrol.com, (video here) around 15 percent of TV advertising inventory remains unsold, and Dentsu intends to sell that online.

SEE ALSO: Dentsu India To Auction TV Ad Spots Online

Sandeep Goyal, Chairman of Dentsu Communications says that it will not effect regular deals…Media buyers are obviously not happy, since it takes them out of the picture - smaller clients will go directly for last minute inventory, instead of signing up with them for negotiatiating deals (they get special rates because of bulk orders, representing a number of clients). Earlier reports had stated that Dentsu will be selling regular ad inventory - not just last minute - which would have raised ad rates. A Google AdWords kind of a scenario. The selling of only last minute inventory seems to be a bit of a step-down.

Update: Mint has an article on the impact on advertising agencies: Madison had launched AdNova, an online media exchange, and Exchange4media had explored online ad trading.