Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the viewership for Studio 71's YouTube channels. The correct number is 6.7 billion monthly views. The story has been edited to reflect this fact.

Dive Brief:

• Studio 71, a network with more than 600 YouTube creators, has a solution for marketers wary about brand safety on the video platform with an offer for programmatic direct media buys that guarantees non-skippable inventory on its curated channels, per reporting by Adweek.
• “All of the placement of your brand messages will be within your control,” Matt Seiler, Studio71’s president, told Adweek. “You’ll have access to all of our inventory and data, and you won’t have to worry about safety.”
• Studio 71 has 1,200 YouTube channels and gets more than 6.7 billion monthly views on that content. The network’s EVP of media sales, Matt Crowley, is spearheading relationship building with advertisers along with bringing transparency to the process and technology between Studio 71 and Google for the DoubleClick Ad Manager media inventory.

Dive Insight:

While advertisers and Google sort out brand safety and where responsibility lies on the nature of the content where ads are displayed, there is an opening and opportunity for agencies, ad tech firms and content networks like Studio 71. Each of these groups can tap into advertiser concerns and provide a service that at least serves as a band-aid for the problem while Google sorts out various fixes for the issue.

Studio 71 joins a growing list of companies trying to fill brands' need for more control over where their ads appear. GroupM gained access to the confidential list of YouTube channels in the Preferred advertising program and began working with video analytics firm OpenSlate to pre-approve content for its clients’ ads. And Omnicom created a brand safety program for YouTube that reviews hundreds of thousands of ads daily to whitelist brand-appropriate video content.

Studio 71’s offering is similar, but instead of having to review content it is offering advertisers a guarantee the content in its inventory isn’t offensive and is making it easy for marketers to purchase that media programmatically.

Concern over brand safety has escalated this year as attention was drawn to the fact that marketers' ads were running in YouTube videos or on websites depicting hate speech and terrorism. Some marketers have frozen their ad spend on YouTube as a result.  Google’s YouTube problem has the potential to shake up the digital advertising world in unexpected ways, with a greater focus on content curation one solution being explored.