WPP and Interpublic are financially backing a new online system for media and other advertising services transactions.

The two agency holding companies and CBS Corp. yesterday announced (pdf) that they were part of a $40 million round of funding for Spot Runner, which offers a web-based system for planning, buying and creating TV advertising, reports MediaPost. Spot Runner focuses on local broadcast and cable ads for smaller advertisers that lack the resources to retain agencies to handle ad buys. It is now enhancing its system to automate planning, buying and creative execution for online video, video on demand and IPTV.

WPP plans to use Spot Runner to help clients target ads more effectively at the local level, across various media channels, writes ClickZ, adding that Interpublic will have added a new facet to its local, direct response and hyper-targeted communications services.

On the selling side, Spot Runner "offers a more efficient and consolidated system to sell ad inventory and an additional channel to bring new local advertisers to [our] media properties," Joe Ianniello, senior VP of finance at CBS Corp., is quoted by ClickZ as saying. "This new technology will not only increase advertising demand but will also continue to allow stations to control their inventory."