WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—Although CTV advertising continues to see rapid growth, a new survey indicates that buyers remain skeptical of some of the performance claims and increasingly are asking hard questions about measurement, accountability and business impact of their CTV ad campaigns.

These concerns stand in stark contrast to the longstanding claims that connected TV platforms can provide advertisers with clear and convincing data showing the impact of their ad campaigns.

While those claims have helped CTV platforms grab an every growing share of the ad market, new research from Jamloop, a performance CTV platform that connects streaming TV to real business outcomes, shows that CTV is winning a larger share of marketing budgets but not a lot of trust.

Based on a survey of 120 senior brand and agency marketers, the report, “CTV Is Winning Budget. Trust Is Still Catching Up” found that 50% of marketers say their CTV budgets increased year over year, and 63% say CTV already plays a strong performance role in their media mix or is becoming a more accountable performance channel.

However, only one in three buyers (33%) say they fully trust most platform-reported performance claims, while 62% express some level of skepticism.

Accountability standards also remain uneven: Only 42% say CTV is currently held to the same accountability standards as search and social. And, marketers still struggle to defend the spend internally. Only 39% say they feel very confident defending CTV investment to leadership based on current measurement and attribution.

The researchers suggest that better proof could unlock the next wave of growth: More than 70% say they would increase CTV investment if measurement, attribution, and proof of business outcomes improved. Respondents also said that trust concerns remain part of the performance story. More than 60% say they are concerned about fraud or misrepresented inventory in CTV environments.

“The industry has already proven that advertisers want CTV,” said Jeff Fagel, CMO at Jamloop. “What buyers are asking now is a tougher question: what business outcomes does CTV actually drive? Advertisers don’t need another dashboard. They need proof they can defend. The platforms that can prove business impact in ways marketers can actually see and feel, not just through dashboards showing media metrics moving in the right direction, will be the ones that win the next wave of CTV investment.”

The research also points to a broader shift in the media mix. More than 63% of respondents say they are seeing at least some diminishing returns from lower-funnel channels such as paid search and paid social, creating an opening for CTV to play a larger role in performance-focused strategies.

At the same time, marketers remain divided on what CTV performance should actually mean. While 35% prioritize qualified leads, 30% point to online sales and revenue, 30% define performance through revenue or sales lift, and 24% focus on store visits, appointments, or calls. That fragmentation makes it harder to establish common success metrics, compare results across campaigns, and build broader confidence in the category.

For many buyers, performance now means more than site traffic or media metrics alone. It means proving online sales, offline revenue, leads, visits, installs, or broader business impact in a way leadership teams can recognize and trust.

“CTV no longer needs to prove it belongs in the media mix,” Fagel added. “It needs to prove it belongs in the next wave of performance budgets.”

To download the full report, visit jamloop.com.

NEW YORK—In an important development that will improve ad planning and measurement by establishing standardized definitions for digital video product types and their advertising formats, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released the Redefining Media Types (RMT) Standard for public comment.

Developed with IAB Tech Lab, the standard is open for public comment from brands, agencies, publishers, ad tech partners, networks, and other industry stakeholders through August 8.

“As the video marketplace has expanded across platforms, formats, and viewing experiences, the industry needs a more consistent way to define and classify digital video environments,” said Jamie Finstein, vice president, Media Center at IAB. “The Redefining Media Types Standard is intended to give buyers, sellers, publishers, and platforms a shared, future-proof language that improves planning, execution, and measurement across the entire ecosystem.”

“Many of the technical systems supporting digital advertising still rely on inconsistent or outdated classifications for video,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “By partnering with IAB on this framework, we can help connect these definitions to the technical standards and infrastructure needed to support adoption across the industry.”

The RMT Standard is aims to create comprehensive, standardized definitions for digital video product types and their associated advertising formats, including connected TV, online video, social video, FAST, video podcasting and retail video. The definitions consider channels, screens, context and ad formats, with the goal of serving as an authoritative guide for media agencies, publishers, networks, technology partners, and brands.

The standard addresses a core problem in video advertising: legacy media classification terms were built to describe distribution technology and business models, not consumer experience.

For brands and agencies, inconsistent definitions can lead to misaligned planning strategies, incomparable measurement across platforms, and media investments that do not reflect the intended viewing environment. For publishers and platforms, inconsistent terminology can create confusion around inventory packaging, monetization, and buyer expectations. For ad tech and measurement providers, the lack of standardized classification makes it more difficult to support interoperability and consistent reporting across systems.

The IAB noted that the RMT Standard provides a two-layer classification system designed to support both strategic planning and operational execution.

The first layer organizes video advertising environments into four macro buckets grounded in consumer viewing experience, including “Lean Back Viewing”, “Personal Screen Viewing” and “Passive and Communal Viewing.” These buckets are based on how a viewer is cognitively and physically oriented to the screen, rather than the technology delivering the content or the business model funding it.

The second layer applies binary impression-level attributes that allow individual impressions to be classified with precision across platforms and devices, including:

• Sound state
• Skip-enabled versus completion-required
• Full-screen presentation
• Addressability
• Availability of signals
• Measurability
• Device
• Ad Formats

This operational layer gives planners, buyers, measurement vendors, and ad tech platforms a shared set of signals that can be used at the point of transaction, the IAB explained.

Together, the two layers support both planning and technical execution. The macro buckets give the industry a shared language for strategy and cross-platform planning, while the operational attribute layer provides a framework for impression-level classification that can be encoded into OpenRTB bid requests and Project Eidos taxonomy fields.

The framework is intended to create clearer expectations and more consistent communication across the buy-side, sell-side, and technology ecosystem by:

• Helping brands and agencies align media investment with the intended consumer viewing experience.
• Giving publishers and media owners more consistent ways to package and describe inventory.
• Supporting more interoperable reporting and measurement across platforms.
• Providing ad tech and measurement providers with standardized signals that can be used operationally at the point of transaction.
• Creating a more stable standards foundation as video formats, platforms and viewing behaviors evolve, and new media types enter the mix.

A number of industry players praised the release in these statements:

• “Given the extent of change in the video marketplace, from what and where people watch to how advertisers execute ad campaigns, it was critical to come together as an industry and develop a new, contemporary video marketplace framework,” said Adam Gerber, head of strategy, Media.net. “The ambiguity and obsolescence of legacy definitions and ways of working were holding back growth and creating friction in the market. This new standard attempts to fix that and provide a common language for all marketplace participants to apply within the context of their individual businesses.”
• “With the constant innovation and increased complexity of our digital ecosystem, it is important for the industry to have consistent guiding principles in place,” said Alex Stone, senor vice president, managing director, Horizon Media. “These IAB standards are our guardrails which we will use as our progression accelerates for years to come.”
• “As streaming and cross-platform video consumption continue to evolve, premium video remains one of the most effective environments for brands,” said Michael Reidy, senior vice president, Small and Medium Business Growth, Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal. “As an industry, we have an opportunity to align around clearer, more consistent standards that drive greater media effectiveness and deliver simplicity for our partners across buyers, sellers, and technology platforms.”
• “The way people watch video has changed dramatically, but the language the industry uses to describe it hasn’t kept pace,” said Colt Cheadle, senior manager, sales activation, Spectrum Reach. “As video continues to evolve across platforms, screens, and viewing experiences, establishing a common framework is essential to reducing complexity, improving collaboration, and helping buyers and sellers make more informed decisions."

The public comment period for the RMT Standard is open from July 8 through Aug. 8. IAB and the IAB Tech Lab will continue working with industry stakeholders, working group participants, and standards contributors to refine the framework and support adoption across the ecosystem.

To learn more about the Redefining Media Types Standard and to provide feedback, click here.

IRVINE, Calif.—The demand side ad platform Viant Technology has launched its enhanced Publisher Solutions, a centralized tool set that provides seamless access to critical insights and monetization intelligence across the company's advertising platform.

More than 20 partners, including LG Ads, TCL, Scripps, A+E Networks, Xumo, Allen Media Group, Haystack and Vevo, participated in the launch of new capabilities that offer smarter insights, stronger monetization and clearer signals for CTV and programmatic.

These solutions are designed to enable advertisers to access higher-quality and better-addressable inventory at scale, while providing publishers greater transparency into supply quality and enhancing their ability to monetize their inventory. Viant Publisher Solutions are available at no cost to publisher partners.

Viant Publisher Solutions features all-new SupplyIQ, a detailed, publisher-specific dashboard which includes key performance data around Direct Access, Household ID (HHID), and IRIS_ID to form a unified framework focused on improving signal fidelity, supply path efficiency, audience addressability and content intelligence. These inputs directly influence how the Viant ad platform values inventory, allocates spend, and optimizes campaign performance.

“Today’s programmatic ecosystem requires deeper alignment between premium supply and brand advertisers,” said Tim Vanderhook, CEO, Viant Technology. “With Viant Publisher Solutions, we are creating a more transparent and efficient marketplace, giving publishers control and insight into their inventory while enabling advertisers to access premium, signal-rich supply that drives real, measurable outcomes.”

Several of the launch partners praised the new features offered by Publisher Solutions.

Vijay Rao, senior vice president of partnerships at Tubi praised the improved features in a statement saying that “as a publisher, creating more direct relationships with DSPs is increasingly important to maximize both transparency and monetization. Viant’s Direct Access framework gives us a way to collaborate more closely, improve signal quality, and unlock incremental revenue opportunities without additional platform fees.”

"In CTV, transparency and innovation are not just nice to have; they are the foundation of effective advertising. Viant delivers on both, and their Household ID and identity framework gives Molson Coors the future-proofed foundation to power our marketing effectiveness and digital transformation ambitions in 2026 and beyond," said Brad Feinberg, vice president of media and marketing operations, Molson Coors Beverage Company.

Viant described the four core features of Viant Publisher Solutions as follows:

• SupplyIQ: Viant's SupplyIQ reporting solution ensures that Viant only bids on inventory that meets the signal quality thresholds required to drive advertiser outcomes. By continuously evaluating signal coverage, SupplyIQ gives Viant's bidder a clear, accurate view of supply and deprioritizes inventory that cannot be evaluated with confidence. Publishers who want to maximize their eligibility for Viant demand can use SupplyIQ's reporting layer to understand exactly how their inventory appears to the DSP and where improvements will directly impact monetization.
• Direct Access: Viant's Supply Path Optimization (SPO) framework connects advertisers to premium CTV and digital inventory through the most direct and cost-efficient paths available. By eliminating unnecessary intermediary hops, Direct Access reduces auction noise and ensures a greater share of every advertiser dollar goes toward working media, not fees. Unlike competing SPO programs that charge publishers a percentage of advertiser spend, Viant charges publishers nothing. Currently, 85% of CTV spend on the Viant platform is transacted through Direct Access.
• Household ID: Viant’s publisher Household ID (HHID) integration enables publishers to sync their first-party data into Viant’s deterministic identity framework, increasing addressability and measurement capabilities. Advertisers benefit from more accurate audience targeting, cross-device frequency management, and improved attribution.
• IRIS_ID: Viant’s content identification and targeting solution allows publishers to map their video content to standardized IRIS Content IDs, unlocking new monetization strategies based on content-level signals. Advertisers can now target and measure campaigns at the content level, improving contextual alignment and engagement.

Viant Publisher Solutions are available to Viant’s partners now at no cost. For more information, visit viantinc.com/solutions/publisher

NEW YORK—Comcast Advertising struck a deal to integrate transaction data from Affinity Solutions into LENS, the AI-powered audience discovery engine that is a key part of its Outcomes+ solution.

Adding the data from Affinity, a provider of consumer purchasing insights and analytics, will help advertisers find untapped audiences, optimize spend toward incremental reach and measure campaign performance based on real consumer purchases, Comcast Advertising said.

“Advertisers increasingly want to plan and buy media based on real consumer purchase behavior, not proxy metrics like clicks,” said Dawn Lee Williamson, chief revenue officer, media solutions at Comcast Advertising. “As the performance engine for TV, Comcast Advertising helps brands apply those insights to identify untapped audiences, uncover incremental opportunities and connect TV exposure across traditional, streaming and addressable TV to real business outcomes. By bringing Affinity’s purchase data into our already rich first-party data environment, we’re making that capability even stronger.”

Combining viewership data from more than 30 million Comcast cable-TV homes with Affinity’s transaction-level dataset of more than 100 million consumers across thousands of brands and categories will let advertisers identify and reach high-value audiences on demand based on real purchase behavior, Comcast said. This ensures campaigns are delivered to the consumers most likely to drive business outcomes, it said.

More specifically, the integration will allow advertisers to:

• By building audiences off verified credit and debit card spending, not modeled behavior or intent signals, brands can target proven category buyers, reach competitor customers, re-engage lapsed purchasers, and reach high-value spenders with greater confidence.
• The partnership also helps advertisers close the loop by measuring the same target audience identified through Affinity’s purchase insights. By linking ad exposure through Comcast’s household data to post-campaign purchase activity in Affinity’s transaction database, brands get direct proof of business impact across in-store and online sales.
• The combined dataset also helps advertisers identify where incremental audiences exist across Comcast’s traditional TV and streaming inventory, so budgets can be directed toward the channels and dayparts that drive genuine reach expansion instead of duplicated exposure.

“This partnership brings our consumer purchase insights directly into premium TV, proving that transaction data is just as powerful in television as it is in digital and retail media,” said Damian Garbaccio, chief commercial and marketing officer at Affinity Solutions. “Together with Comcast Advertising, we’re giving marketers a stronger way to find the right audiences, activate against real purchase behavior and measure the business impact that matters most.”

LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Streaming SaaS platform provider Frequency has announced the launch of In-Scene Advertising, a new capability that brings contextually intelligent advertising formats directly into the viewing experience across Frequency’s global distribution network.

The solution will have its first public demonstration at The Stream TV Show, June 16-19 2026, Denver, Colorado, where Frequency is a Marquee Sponsor.

Launching with four ad experiences, L-Shape, Double Box, Picture-in-Picture, and Overlay, In-Scene Advertising creates new, premium advertising inventory from programming already in distribution, enabling content owners and distributors to unlock incremental revenue without increasing traditional ad load.

“At Frequency, our role is to help our customers build sustainable streaming businesses,” said Blair Harrison, founder & CEO of Frequency. “In-Scene Advertising creates entirely new monetization opportunities from the channels and content our partners already operate at scale. It’s designed to work seamlessly within the streaming ecosystem today – across existing workflows, infrastructure, and distribution.”

More specifically, Frequency explained that the In-Scene advertising placement is powered by its proprietary scene intelligence technology . Every media asset is analyzed across multiple dimensions - including brand safety, sentiment, viewer attention, visual clarity, category, and scene context - to identify relevant moments for each ad experience. The analysis runs entirely within Frequency's infrastructure.

Built specifically for streaming television, In-Scene Advertising is also compatible with existing Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) infrastructure, ad servers, and measurement providers. Publishers can activate new monetization opportunities without operational changes, while maintaining full control over how inventory is packaged and sold.

Frequency also reported that it supports both direct-sold and programmatic demand models, giving partners flexibility in how they bring these formats to market. Through Frequency’s footprint of over 2,500 live channels distributed across the world’s leading FAST and v/MVPD platforms, publishers can activate In-Scene Advertising at meaningful scale from day one.

As a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Frequency also stressed that is committed to open industry standards and interoperable advertising infrastructure. Frequency is collaborating with OpenGlass to activate these formats programmatically, with other leading demand partners soon to follow.

“OpenGlass is the first platform designed to bring premium, direct demand for all advanced CTV formats from L-Shape to picture-in-picture,” said Jason Higgins, co-founder and CEO of OpenGlass. “We’re thrilled to partner with Frequency, whose scale, rendering infrastructure, and Scene Intelligence capabilities make them uniquely positioned to deliver these experiences for content owners looking to unlock new revenue from existing channels.”

In-Scene Advertising is available now to Frequency channel partners and distributors. Content owners interested in activating the service can contact Frequency to discuss deployment and monetization options.

The Frequency team will be on the ground at The Stream TV Show, 16-19 June, Denver, Colorado, and at Cannes Lions, 22-26 June, Cannes, France. Visit www.frequency.com/streamtv to book a meeting.

NEW YORK—If you think the ubiquitous television commercials for pharmaceuticals are already too long, a new report from the Video Advertising Bureau confirms your suspicions.

According to the report, pharmaceutical companies have increased their spending on TV ads, which are, in turn, getting longer in duration following an Food and Drug Administration crackdown on deceptive advertising imposed last September.

“In September 2025, the FDA launched a crackdown on deceptive drug advertising with an initial issuance of over 65 ‘warning’ letters to pharma companies, 96% of which were targeted towards digital and social platforms. What came from that was a regulatory clarity that spurred increased investment across multiscreen TV platforms,” said Jason Wiese, executive vice president, strategic insights and measurement. “To help marketers better understand this current landscape, VAB conducted an analysis of recent TV investment and ad duration trends, with our findings detailed in the report.”

The report noted that the marketplace clarity provided by the FDA’s actions spurred significantly increased investment across multiscreen TV platforms in the six months immediately following the crackdown, with an 11% increase in pharmaceutical advertisers and a 53% year-over-year increase in total TV spend.

There has also been a noticeable shift towards longer pharma Rx ad unit durations. For instance, between first-quarter 2024 and Q1 2026, the share of pharma Rx ad units longer than 30 seconds increased from 74% to 82%. Further, the share of 60-second TV ad units in the pharma Rx category increased from 56% to 63% between August 2025 and March 2026.

In 1Q ’26, the highest share of longer-length TV ads came from pharmaceutical categories focused on serious and complex health conditions, including depression, HIV, tardive dyskinesia, bipolar disorder, cancer and diabetes.Rx brands are being more mindful of proactively adhering to advertising rules and regulations across multiscreen TV platforms as they present a fair balance between their product’s risks and benefits and include information regarding major side effects and considerations.

The full report—which includes in-depth data, charts and analysis spanning total TV and streaming, prime-time daypart, sports, news and entertainment genres, as well as pharma product categories—is available here.

As streaming TV continues reshaping the global media landscape, new research from DoubleVerify shows that marketers are increasing investment across the world’s largest streaming platforms, with YouTube leading the way.

The findings are part of DV’s newly released 2026 Global Insights report, “Must-CTV: Streaming’s Shift From Promise to Performance,” which draws on proprietary DV measurement data spanning billions of impressions from DV-protected campaigns. It also uses controlled tests where protection controls were not applied, as well as surveys of more than 2,000 marketers and 22,000 consumers across more than 20 global markets.

Key findings include:

• 70% of marketers said they increased streaming investment in YouTube over the last year
• 65% increased investment in Netflix
• 59% increased investment in Amazon Prime
• 48% increased investment in Samsung streaming environments
• The findings underscore the continued acceleration of advertiser investment into premium streaming TV environments as marketers look to reach increasingly fragmented audiences across connected TV (“CTV”) platforms.

“Globally, streaming TV has become a core part of the modern media mix,” said Collette Spagnolo, vice president of marketing, integrated marketing and analytics at DoubleVerify. “Marketers are recognizing the value of platforms where consumers are spending more of their viewing time, particularly environments that can deliver both scale and measurable business outcomes.”

The report also reflects broader industry momentum around streaming TV as advertisers seek greater performance, transparency, and engagement in premium video environments.

Must-CTV: Streaming’s Shift From Promise to Performance, the first of DV’s 2026 Global Insights reports, is now available here.

MILAN—Streaming tech providers Brightcove announced two new capabilities in its AI Suite for video advertising: AI Contextual Ads and Smart Ad Breaks.

Both features are now available to customers.

"AI has transformed a lot of the video workflow over the past two years, captions, transcripts, metadata generation," said Facundo Alvarez Morales, product lead at Brightcove. "With AI Contextual Ads and Smart Ad Breaks, we're bringing it to a different layer: the decisions inside the platform that decide what a video earns. That's where we believe AI should be working hardest in this industry."

The two capabilities join a Brightcove AI Suite that has seen improvements relating to captions, transcripts, metadata generation, and content discovery in the past year.

Brightcove is also reporting that it plans twenty major releases in the last twelve months, including Prism, a fully redesigned interface launched in the past weeks.

The launch arrives at a moment of structural change in the advertising market, Brightcove executives said in making the announcement. The global contextual advertising market is on track to reach $258 billion in 2026 and $379 billion by 2030, driven by the deprecation of third-party cookies and the demand for brand-safe environments.

In addition, connected TV is the fastest-growing premium ad format, with the US market reaching $33.5 billion in 2026, a 28% year-over-year increase that outpaces every other established digital channel.

The rapid growth of both contextual advertising and connected TV put pressure on the ability of platforms to maintain the quality of the contextual signal feeding the ad call, and the precision of the moment the ad is placed, Brightcove explained.

The two new features are designed to help users overcome those problems.

AI Contextual Ads reads video content scene by scene and categorizes it against the IAB contextual taxonomy at both the video and scene level. The resulting signals are passed into the ad server at the moment of the ad call, giving advertisers contextual targeting at the resolution of the individual scene rather than the asset as a whole, a single video can pass different signals to different ad breaks. The ad selection mechanism itself does not change; what changes is that scene-level contextual becomes a real input alongside the dozens already weighed by the ad server.

Smart Ad Breaks analyses each video and recommends mid-roll cue point positions based on natural pauses, scene transitions, and brand safety signals. Editorial teams review and approve the suggestions before they go live.

"Scene-level contextual targeting at scale runs into one practical problem: the manual effort it takes to produce the signal." said Janpaul Pescollderungg, product manager at Brightcove. "AI Contextual Ads removes that bottleneck, and Smart Ad Breaks lets editorial teams scale their judgment across the library rather than the slice they have time to watch. The result is the heavy lifting comes off the team, and the judgment stays where it belongs."

LONDON–-Gravity Media, a global production, content, media services and facilities provider, has announced that it is partnering with The Good Work Quickly, a creative production company, to launch Gravity Media Creative Agency.

Drawing on Gravity Media's global production infrastructure and deep expertise, the new agency will offer customers end-to-end campaigns and services spanning strategy, creative development and execution.

The Good Work Quickly describes itself as an advertising and sports entertainment agency offering strategy, creative and production services.

“By combining world-class production expertise with high-end creative capability, we are uniquely positioned to deliver integrated campaigns that better serve the world’s biggest sporting and entertainment platforms,” Gravity Media Chairman and CEO John Newton said. “We look forward to deepening our collaborative offering with a continued focus on our customers’ evolving needs as the industry landscape shifts.”

As audience viewing habits change and live moments drive real-time engagement, brands and rightsholders face increasing pressure to deliver high-impact creative quickly and across more platforms than ever before, the companies said. But disconnected agency, production and postproduction models move slowly and dilute creative consistency, they said.

Gravity Media Creative Agency will bring those functions together, the companies said. Its founders have previously delivered campaigns for large global brands including Lexus, Emirates and Coca-Cola. The Good Work Quickly, founded by experienced advertising professionals, provides strategy, creative and production and has produced high-impact campaigns for globally recognized brands.

Bringing together The Good Work Quickly’s seasoned writers, directors and producers with Gravity Media’s production expertise, Gravity Media Creative Agency works across TV, documentary, digital, social, branded content and live activations.

“Gravity Media Creative sits at the intersection of broadcast craft and modern brand storytelling,” Dave Bedwood, co-founder of The Good Work Quickly, said. “Our hybrid model means we can think like a creative agency but execute like a production powerhouse.”

“We’ve built a reputation on delivering some of the most complex live productions in the world,” said Jamie Hindhaugh, CEO of Gravity Media’s U.K., U.S., Australia and Middle East operations. “Gravity Media Creative Agency allows us to extend that capability upstream, partnering with brands and rightsholders earlier in the process to shape the creative, not just deliver it. It’s a natural evolution of where the industry is heading.”

NEW YORK—The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) has released a paper that explores how all ad impressions are not created equal, and how signals like attention and context have become increasingly important as buyers rethink how media should be valued in a signal-constrained ecosystem.

The “Quality Matters: Navigating Quality in Media Buying and Measurement” report advances the thesis that Media Quality (MQ) signals—the non-user-specific attributes of an ad placement such as attention and situational context—are becoming a critical link for valuing media in an increasingly signal-constrained ecosystem.

Authored by ad tech veteran Erez Levin, strategist Gabriel Dorosz and CIMM Managing Director Jon Watts, the paper contends that quality signals can better distinguish mere delivery from meaningful exposures.

At a time when traditional metrics like viewability and completion rates offer only partial insight, particularly in CTV, the paper calls for clearer, industry-aligned definitions and frameworks for Quality in media buying and measurement. It also outlines how these signals can be operationalized to better align media cost with true value across outcomes.

Based on those findings, CIMM said it will launch a structured program of industry consultation to identify practical pathways for applying Media Quality in real-world media buying and measurement.

This initiative will engage advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad tech companies to surface key barriers, align on priorities, and define actionable next steps for advancing quality-based approaches across the marketplace, the group reported.

"CIMM’s mission is to illuminate emerging opportunities and challenges within the marketplace and help the industry make more informed decisions,” Watts said. “With CTV as the proving ground, this paper is intended as a catalyst for debate and action, providing the industry with the necessary structure and rigor to rethink the role and importance of quality signals in a fast-changing media marketplace. We believe this paper is an important contribution to the ongoing debate about media effectiveness and are excited to explore the opportunities to advance quality-based buying with the industry.”

Key takeaways from the paper include:

• Not all impressions deliver equal value: The attributes of a media placement such as visibility, context, and user experience materially influence outcomes and are currently underutilized in media valuation.
• Media Quality is becoming essential in a signal-constrained world: As identity-based targeting and attribution become less precise, Media Quality provides a scalable, privacy-safe way to assess the likely value of an impression.
• Effectiveness requires balancing short- and long-term outcomes: Over-optimizing for short-term performance can undermine brand growth and profitability. Media decisions must account for both.
• Better signals enable better pricing and allocation: Quality indicators such as attention and contextual factors can allow buyers to differentiate inventory and allocate budgets toward higher-value impressions.
• Quality is measurable and should be treated that way: Defining quality as “predictive efficacy” shifts it from a subjective concept to something that can be tested, validated, and optimized over time.
• Value exists on a spectrum, not a threshold: Moving beyond binary metrics like “viewable or not” can enable more precise alignment between cost and expected performance.
• CTV is the immediate opportunity: With wide variation in inventory quality and high CPMs, Connected TV is the clearest near-term use case for applying quality-based buying and measurement.

The paper was developed with input from marketing professionals and industry executives focused on attention and other quality metrics, both within and beyond CIMM.

To move Media Quality from theory to operational market practice, CIMM now plans to launch a structured industry initiative focused on practical implementation, validation, and standardization. The initiative will initially focus on connected TV (CTV), where variation in inventory quality, rising CPMs, and evolving programmatic infrastructure create the clearest near-term opportunity for quality-based buying and measurement.

The program will explore:

• The opportunities for greater alignment around the definitions, taxonomies, and core signals used to assess Media Quality across media buying and measurement workflows.
• The influence of Media Quality signals on campaign outcomes, pricing, allocation efficiency and long-term effectiveness.
• The need for practical guidance and operational frameworks to help stakeholders incorporate Media Quality into planning, buying, optimization, measurement, and reporting processes.
• The work will begin with a public industry webinar on June 8 introducing the paper and its findings, with ongoing working sessions facilitated through CIMM’s Innovation in Media Metrics Working Group.

CIMM expects to publish additional findings, implementation recommendations, and proposed industry frameworks later this year.

Download the full paper here.

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Viamedia.ai has released a major upgrade to its Geo-Graph advertising and marketing service that turns geography into an intelligence layer that helps advertisers plan better campaigns and improve performance in a post-ID world.

A key component of the upgrade is the integration of Uber’s H3 hexagonal grid system.

Viamedia says that Geo‑Graph with H3 transforms geography from a static filter into an intelligent planning, activation, and insight layer, unlocking neighborhood‑level precision, consistent cross‑channel execution, and privacy‑first targeting at scale.

Unlike traditional geo‑targeting, which varies by channel and platform, Geo‑Graph with H3 uses a single, shared spatial framework for planning, activation, and measurement. This reduces guesswork, increases buyer confidence, and improves performance outcomes before dollars are spent.

“Agencies are being asked to guarantee performance with fewer signals and more fragmentation,” said Evan Rutchik, president & chief strategy officer at Viamedia. “Geo‑Graph with H3 gives them something they don’t get today: a shared geographic truth across planning, activation, and measurement. It’s how geography finally becomes reliable enough to replace IDs, not just supplement them.”

Another key feature of Geo‑Graph is pre‑activation audience validation. This allows media planners and buyers to see estimated reach, audience density, and the final LFID footprint, using Viamedia’s proprietary identifier. All of this is possible within each geo before a single campaign dollar is spent, thereby shifting optimization upstream in the planning process. In doing so, Viamedia said that Geo-Graph reduces wasted spend and increase advertiser confidence in campaign outcomes.

“As advertisers adjust to signal loss, they need new ways to accurately target their ad campaigns and still deliver the performance that helps grow their revenue,” said Joel Hall, Chief Product Officer at Viamedia. “The shift to H3 modernizes geographic targeting, bringing the capabilities more in line with how brands and agencies want to plan and activate campaigns today. This helps advertisers see performance where people actually live—not just where impressions landed.”

Geo-Graph maps billions of data points into a highly granular, location-based audience intelligence platform. By mapping data to the most precise micro-geographic levels, the Geo-Graph enables detailed audience analysis and campaign planning. This service provides the foundational dataset and visual tools needed to execute targeted marketing strategies at any scale—from hyper-local to national and beyond. Advertisers and agencies are already realizing these benefits in managed service campaigns, and will soon have access to the same features in programmatic guaranteed efforts.

Geo‑Graph is designed to scale from local to national, intelligently adapted based on the size of the market selected. The platform automatically adjusts so that performance remains fast, insights remain usable and browsers and workflows don’t break.

For more information, visit www.Viamedia.ai.

The French advertising giant Publicis Groupe has entered into an agreement to acquire San Francisco-based  LiveRamp, a global data collaboration platform, for $2.167 billion in an all-cash transaction, based on an acquisition price of $38.50 per share.

LiveRamp, which has over 1,300 employees, offers a data collaboration network for AI-powered marketing that enables companies to unify, manage, and activate data across the digital ecosystem. 

Currently, it connects over 25,000 publisher domains and 500+ technology and data partners across 14 markets, and enables thousands of brands, retailers, media platforms, and data providers to collaborate and connect their data.

"LiveRamp joining Publicis Groupe is the latest demonstration of our commitment to investing in new talent and innovation, ahead of market shifts,” said Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe. “After acquiring Epsilon in 2019 in the name of personalization at scale and enabling​ our clients to take back control of their data from the walled gardens, by shifting from cookies to identity, once again we are looking ahead to what’s next. By building the future of data co-creation, we’re empowering our clients to generate new, exclusive and proprietary data, to build the smartest, most differentiated AI agents on top of the leading LLMs.”

This, he added, “will be valuable for our clients’ business growth” and create “a new addressable market for Publicis.”

“With LiveRamp, Publicis will become a leader in data co-creation, an important capability in the age of artificial intelligence and an enabler of agentic business transformation,” added Carla Serrano, Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis Groupe. “With this acquisition, for a total enterprise value of $2.2 billion, the Groupe furthers its investment in technology, data, and AI-services to unlock new opportunities for the agentic era. In doing so it will  expand its addressable market, allowing it to raise its 2027-2028 objectives on net revenue and headline EPS growth at constant currency.”

The purchase price represents a 29.8% premium to LiveRamp’s closing share price on May 15th, 2026, the last trading day prior to the announcement of the agreement. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of both Publicis Groupe and LiveRamp.

Following the acquisition, LiveRamp will continue to be led by CEO Scott Howe, who will report directly to Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun. LiveRamp will continue to operate as a neutral, interoperable platform.

The transaction is expected to close before year-end 2026, subject to regulatory approvals, approval by LiveRamp's shareholders and other closing conditions.

Connected TV is already the most powerful format in advertising—and it’s about to become even more important.

That might sound counterintuitive. AI is reshaping every corner of digital advertising, and CTV has already gone through its “honeymoon phase” of rampant growth. But as the ecosystem becomes mediated by agents, the channels that shape consumer preference before agents will gain outsized importance.

That’s where CTV wins.

AI Is Compressing the Consumer Journey
Agentic commerce isn't a distant concept. It’s already emerging.

Consumers are delegating more decisions to AI: discovering products, comparing options, summarizing reviews, even completing purchases. What used to be a multi-step journey—search, click, browse, evaluate—is collapsing into a single interaction.

That has a direct impact on the mechanics of digital advertising. Fewer searches. Fewer clicks. Fewer pages viewed. Fewer opportunities to insert an ad into the process.

Search won’t disappear, but it is becoming abstracted. Display won’t vanish, but it is losing surface area. Commerce media isn’t going away, but it’s becoming more concentrated, with fewer, more decisive moments instead of a long trail of signals.

Performance marketing, as it stands today, is built on volume of impressions, clicks, and signals. That foundation is starting to erode. Not overnight. Not uniformly. But directionally, the trend is clear.

Influence Moves Upstream (and Becomes More Valuable)
As decision-making shifts to agents, the most valuable moment moves earlier in the journey, before the handoff.

Agents don’t watch TV. They don’t experience creative. They don’t build brand preference.

Humans do.

CTV remains one of the few scaled environments where brands can shape perception, create intent, and influence decisions before they’re delegated. While other channels face shrinking interaction surfaces, CTV retains (and expands) its leverage.

CTV Is Stuck in an Outdated Role
Despite its capabilities, CTV is largely treated as a branding channel. That no longer holds.

CTV has always had the ingredients of a performance channel: high-quality inventory, deterministic signals in logged-in environments, strong targeting, and the ability to connect exposure to outcomes. But still, advertisers have largely kept it in a branding box.

That is a structural mismatch.

Performance teams have spent years optimizing within environments built around clicks and direct response signals. CTV, while it has performance levers, doesn’t look or behave the same way, so it’s often held at arm’s length by performance teams.

The result is a split that no longer makes sense. As clicks and impressions become less reliable proxies for performance, advertisers can't afford to isolate CTV upstream while expecting downstream channels to drive outcomes alone.

As agent-driven behaviors reshape the advertising landscape, influence and conversion need to be connected, and CTV is one of the few channels that can bridge that gap at scale. It’s time for marketers to rethink and reprioritize CTV’s overall role within the broader marketing mix.

What Advertisers Should Do Now
The shift to an agent-driven digital ecosystem is already underway. Waiting for it to fully materialize before adjusting strategy will put brands behind. There are a few practical moves advertisers should be making now.

1. Reallocate a portion of performance budgets into CTV, not just brand budgets. If CTV is going to carry more of the load for driving outcomes, it needs to be funded accordingly. That means moving dollars out of lower-yield impression environments, not just adding incremental spend on top.
   
2. Hold CTV accountable to outcomes. Stop briefing CTV purely around reach and frequency. Define what success looks like in terms of business outcomes, whether that’s conversion lift, site engagement, or downstream revenue, and hold campaigns accountable to it.
   
3. Build creative that drives action, not just recall. CTV creative needs to do more than tell a story. It should create urgency, reinforce differentiation, and make the next step clear. That might mean rethinking pacing, messaging, and how calls to action are incorporated into the experience.
   
4. Integrate CTV into the performance loop. Don’t treat CTV as a standalone input. Use first-party data and signals from CTV exposure to inform targeting, sequencing, and optimization elsewhere. The goal is to turn CTV into a demand engine that other channels can capture more efficiently.
   
5. Reevaluate reliance on click-based signals. If your strategy depends heavily on large volumes of clicks and impressions, it’s worth modeling what happens as those decline. Identify where CTV can take on a greater role in influencing those outcomes earlier in the process. This is where view-through conversions will be impacted the most.

The Next Phase for CTV
As AI agents take over execution, advertising’s role shifts from capturing interactions to shaping decisions. That makes channels built around human attention more valuable, not less.

CTV’s next phase will belong to advertisers that stop treating it as a premium awareness channel and start using it as a strategic bridge between influence and action. In a world where agents may increasingly control the final mile of discovery, comparison, and purchase, brands must win earlier, with humans, in moments where attention still has depth. CTV gives advertisers that opportunity.

NEW YORK—The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and TVB have released their “Guidelines for Local TV/Video Currency Measurement”, an industry resource designed to clarify what buyers, sellers and measurement providers should expect from currency-measurement solutions intended for the local TV and local video marketplace.

“Local TV and local video remain important parts of the advertising marketplace,” CIMM Managing Director Jon Watts said. “As such, the industry will benefit from having a clear, practical framework for evaluating whether measurement solutions are truly ready for local use. These guidelines are intended to help create that shared reference point.”

Developed through industry collaboration and informed by buyer and seller input, the guidelines are intended to provide a practical framework for evaluating whether local measurement solutions are fit for market use, CIMM and TVB said. The goal is to support a more consistent, informed and transparent approach to local currency measurement as the marketplace continues to evolve.

“Local market transactions have specific requirements, and those requirements are not always addressed by broader measurement discussions,” said Hadassa Gerber, executive vice president and chief research officer, TVB. “This work is meant to give the market a more useful standard for assessing whether local TV and local video currency solutions are inclusive, usable, and transparent.”

In addition to the guidelines, CIMM and TVB released a companion Buyer’s Guide, designed to help buyers, sellers and other industry stakeholders translate the framework into a practical provider review process. The Buyer’s Guide includes due diligence questions and review areas that can support more consistent evaluation of local currency services.

The guidelines are built around three core principles:

• Inclusive Measurement should reflect the diversity of local audiences, the full range of ways viewers access local TV and video content, and the realities of markets of different sizes across the U.S.
• Transactable Measurement should be stable, reliable and suitable for use in forecasting, audience guarantees, post analysis, and the operational requirements of buying and selling local media.
• Transparent Measurement, meaning providers should clearly disclose methodology, communicate changes in advance, support auditability and provide the market with enough information to evaluate how a service works and how results should be interpreted.

To download “Guidelines for Local TV/Video Currency Measurement” and the Buyer’s Guide, visit the CIMM and TVB websites.

NEW YORK—Operative, a provider of software that helps media companies manage and sell ads across TV, streaming and digital platforms, has named Dang Ly as chief product officer.

Ly, the former senior vice president and chief technology officer at Universal Destinations & Experiences, is tasked with leading Operative’s product strategy and road map across a portfolio that includes AOS, Operative.One, Adeline AI and STAQ; deepening its data-unification capabilities; expanding its omnichannel intelligence layer; and accelerating AI integration across its product suite, the company said.

“Media and advertising is evolving rapidly, and the companies that can unify trusted data and turn it into personalized audience experiences will define the next era,” Ly said. “Omnichannel engagement and AI only deliver value when the data underneath is connected, reliable and activated intelligently. Operative sits at exactly that intersection and I’m energized to help our customers turn connected data into measurable, outcome-based growth.”

Ly has spent more than 20 years scaling customer-facing products in media, entertainment, hospitality and retail, and building the data platforms that support them, Operative said. At Universal Destinations & Experiences, the theme-park unit of Comcast NBCUniversal, he oversaw a global enterprise strategy that leveraged data and AI to unify customer, operational and transactional data into workflows, automation and personalized guest experiences, the company said.

Previously, Ly spent nearly a decade leading NBCUniversal’s core ad sales technology and engineering teams.

“Dang brings something rare,” Operative CEO Mike Napodano said. “He has built audience data platforms at scale, and he has used them to deliver products that transform the way customers manage their business. He understands that 360-degree audience understanding isn’t a dashboard or a report, it’s an end-to-end discipline that starts with how you capture data and ends with how you act on it. That perspective is exactly what will shape Operative’s product roadmap as we help our customers grow in an AI-driven world.”

Ly’s appointment sets up Operative’s strategic focus on omnichannel data strategies and advanced analytics, the company said.

NEW YORK—XR (Extreme Reach) has announced what it is billing as a first-of-its-kind solution for paying AI-generated performers in ads.

At a time when advertisers are increasingly using AI replicas of actors or AI created characters, the payments system is designed to offer ethical, compliant AI talent payments aligned with the SAG-AFTRA Commercials Contract, XR reported.

XR's platform is built to support AI performances in advertising without disrupting the underlying systems that govern celebrity and talent rights and compensation. While AI performances such as de-aging and likeness recreation have historically been reserved for big budget film and television series, their rapid adoption in advertising introduces new operational and compliance challenges.

To address those trends, XR has innovated its platform to fully support two new SAG-AFTRA performer categories, Digital Replicas and Synthetic Performers, giving brands and agencies the compliant, scalable payment infrastructure they need to move fast and stay ahead.

“AI is going to fundamentally change how celebrities and synthetic talent are portrayed in advertising, and agencies, brands, and talent agents must be ready to support this shift,” said Tim Hale, managing director, XR Pay. “The rules around Digital Replicas and Synthetic Performers are new territory for everyone in advertising and XR is here to help our brand and agency clients navigate this complexity, ensuring celebrity rights are protected, everyone gets paid correctly, and that all SAG-AFTRA obligations are met.”

For Digital Replicas, which SAG-AFTRA defines as AI-generated or AI-modified performances tied to a real performer, XR's platform will handle payments to performers or their estates under existing SAG-AFTRA structures, just as if they had appeared in the ad in-person. This covers a wide range of emerging use cases: from living celebrity actors whose performances are enhanced or remixed by AI, to iconic performers no longer with us whose estates have approved their Digital Replicas for use in advertising.

By contrast, for Synthetic Performers, AI-generated performers with no connection to a real person (living or deceased), XR ensures that equivalent compensation is directed to the SAG-AFTRA Pension and Health funds, in accordance with union requirements.

XR’s platform addresses the rapid adoption of AI in production by embedding AI performer classification and payment logic directly into existing workflows, enabling brands, agencies and production partners to scale AI usage with confidence. Additionally, XR Metadata will classify Digital Replicas and Synthetic Performers accordingly, ensuring talent rights are tracked from production to ad delivery.

New capabilities include:

MELBOURNE, Australia—Mediaproxy will demonstrate its newly unveiled suite of AI-powered tools designed to transform how broadcasters and media organizations track the presence of brands in different forms of content over multiple platforms during the 2026 NAB Show, April 18-22, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The new feature set, which has been integrated into the company’s LogServer compliance logging and analysis platform, is based on advanced machine learning models that can automatically detect logos and visual identifiers associated with companies and products. It allows customers to gain deeper insights into brand exposure and sponsorship performance while also ensuring that the accuracy and integrity of the digital information connected to the content or production does not change during distribution.

Key to the feature is an AI-driven detection engine that identifies brands as they appear across multiple channels and regions. Broadcasters can now streamline reporting and reduce manual reviewing and ensure more comprehensive compliance coverage. The solution scales effortlessly and seamlessly to support high-volume environments where rapid, reliable analysis is essential.

As the media landscape becomes increasingly complex, the ability to identify and track brand elements automatically gives organizations a powerful tool for understanding audience engagement and allows them to verify contractual obligations.

See Mediaproxy at 2026 NAB Show booth W1423.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NOVI, Mich.—ENCO has announced a major evolution of its aiTrack dynamic content insertion technology for NAB Show 2026, transforming the original aiTrack workflow into a fully cloud-native, automation-agnostic platform designed for modern broadcast environments.

The company will demo the new features at Booth C2116 in the Central Hall of the LVCC during the show, April 18-22 in Las Vegas.

Built to meet the growing demand for timely, localized and engaging content, aiTrack enables broadcasters to instantly generate, customize and schedule AI-driven audio segments for live and automated programming.

Accessible through any web browser for the first time, aiTrack allows on-air and production teams to create broadcast-ready content in seconds using advanced generative AI models and natural-sounding synthetic voices. From breaking news, entertainment, weather and sports updates to sponsored segments and localized content, the platform delivers seamless insertion into live broadcasts or scheduled playlists across terrestrial and streaming platforms.

“aiTrack represents a fundamental shift in how broadcasters approach content creation and delivery,” said Ken Frommert, President, ENCO. “By removing infrastructure barriers and simplifying AI workflows, we’re giving stations of all sizes the ability to produce high-quality, real-time content that connects with audiences in more meaningful and personalized ways.”

aiTrack's architecture combines large language models, real-time data integration and advanced prompt engineering with high-quality synthetic voice technology. A unique “foundation prompt” framework streamlines complex AI processes into intuitive templates, allowing users to generate consistent, on-brand content simply by entering key variables such as location, format or sponsorship details, according to the company.

The platform’s automation-agnostic design ensures compatibility with any broadcast system, enabling seamless delivery of generated audio files into existing workflows from anywhere in the world. Its role-based interface supports collaboration across teams, while integrated scheduling tools allow users to plan and automate content delivery through a centralized calendar.

aiTrack also introduces significant advancements in audio realism and flexibility, including multi-voice capabilities, language localization and voice cloning technology derived from ENCO’s SPECai platform. These enhancements bring AI-generated audio closer than ever to human performance, enabling broadcasters to maintain a consistent and authentic on-air sound.

As broadcasters navigate staffing challenges and increasing content demands, aiTrack provides a scalable solution that reduces production overhead while expanding creative and revenue opportunities. Stations can deliver more frequent updates, personalize content for local audiences, and incorporate branded or sponsored segments—all while maintaining operational efficiency, according to the company.

“By combining dynamic content generation, flexible scheduling and cloud-based delivery, aiTrack redefines what’s possible in live broadcasting, empowering organizations to do more with less while enhancing audience engagement,” said Frommert.

NEW YORK—Christopher Martinez, who joined Hearst Television in 2021 as OTT director of sales, has been promoted to the newly created role of vice president, advanced advertising. He will continue to report to Jonathan Sumber, Hearst Television’s vice president, digital sales.

“Chris understands the nexus between digital advertising and legacy media,” Michael J. Hayes, Hearst Television president said. “Working with Jon Sumber and colleagues on Hearst Television’s digital team, in concert with our stations across the country, he has helped expand not only our digital footprint but marketing partners’ businesses with proven, high quality, brand-safe, results-driven ad products and strategies.”

Martinez’s new role encompasses digital-ad product development, platform integration, and oversight of the company’s digital ad-tech stack and emerging platform strategy while continuing to work closely with clients and partners.

“Chris’s new position is central to Hearst Television’s digital monetization strategy and will serve as a connective point between product innovation and real-time market conditions,” Sumber said.

Martinez began his advertising sales career with Katz Television Group in 2014, gaining experience in the linear TV space as a sales assistant before moving into the role of account executive. He received the inaugural Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) Next Award for Television Sales in 2017 and one year later was promoted at Katz to manager of integrated video for Hearst’s OTT product, Hearst Anyscreen. Since he joined Hearst Television as OTT director of sales in 2021, the company has tripled its OTT revenue.

Martinez has been active within Hearst Television mentoring programs. He is an alumnus of Seton Hall University, where he studied Diplomacy & International Relations, with minors in Spanish and Economics. He is also a graduate of the Hearst Management Institute, Hearst’s executive leadership development program, and sits on a number of industry committees within the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Comcast’s ad platform and ad tech company FreeWheel has announced the launch of its new AI agent infrastructure, powered by FreeWheel’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and a suite of intelligence tools.

The updates embed AI directly into the core of premium video transactions, enabling buyers and sellers to automate workflows, optimize performance in real time, and operate with greater speed and confidence.

FreeWheel also announced that global independent platform company PMG is among the first partners to pilot these capabilities for its clients to use directly in Alli, PMG’s marketing operating system.

FreeWheel’s MCP Server provides a secure foundation that allows AI agents to talk directly to FreeWheel’s platform and take action. Built on this infrastructure, FreeWheel’s Intelligence tools continuously monitor deal performance, analyze spend and inventory quality, track commitments, and automate routine decision-making. Together, these capabilities transform traditionally manual, fragmented processes into intelligent, always-on execution.

“FreeWheel’s mission is to modernize how premium video is transacted, and that means embedding AI directly into the systems our clients rely on every day,” said Mark McKee, General Manager, FreeWheel. “With our MCP Server and Intelligence tools, we are creating a new foundation where AI can help buyers and sellers operate more efficiently, make smarter decisions, and unlock greater value from premium inventory. Partners like PMG are helping lead this transformation by putting these capabilities into action.”

PMG is piloting these new capabilities within Alli, enabling its teams and clients to monitor and analyze deal performance, identify opportunities, and optimize global streaming campaigns faster and more efficiently. Integrating directly with FreeWheel’s AI infrastructure allows Alli to query and act on streaming data with minimal latency.

With this deep technical bridge, PMG is advancing its ability to deliver more intelligent, automated media buying strategies.

“Often AI in our industry today is just a wrapper around generic models. What we have built with FreeWheel is true technical interoperability,” said Mike Treon, Head of CTV & Video Strategy at PMG. “By connecting Alli to FreeWheel in real-time, we have given our customers an agentic AI solution that goes beyond reporting and actually understands the streaming ecosystem. We are moving past manual setup to an era where teams use our industry-leading marketing operating system to optimize complex global deals instantly.”

This launch represents a major milestone in FreeWheel’s broader innovation strategy to embed AI across its platform, making it easier for buyers and sellers to transact, integrate, and optimize across premium video. By providing a secure, open foundation for AI-driven automation, FreeWheel is enabling partners to build differentiated capabilities while advancing the infrastructure that powers the streaming advertising ecosystem.

The announcement builds on FreeWheel’s recent milestone at CES, where the company introduced cross-platform agentic AI media buying for the first time alongside other industry leaders.

FreeWheel also reported that it will continue introducing new AI-powered capabilities throughout 2026.

NEW YORK—The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and 4As advertising industry group has released findings from a new joint study examining how major U.S. advertisers evaluate and prioritize media measurement across today’s increasingly complex TV and video ecosystem.

Authored by Sarah Mansfield, Alice Sylvester and Leslie Wood, the study finds that while advertisers have unprecedented access to sophisticated data, analytics and measurement tools, confidence has not advanced at the same pace.

The study, which was co-sponsored by Kochava, Nielsen, and TechEdge, said the biggest challenge facing advertisers is not a lack of data or data integrity, but the complexity of reconciling multiple systems, methodologies and competing “versions of the truth” across an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.

That complex ecosystem includes different platform-specific metrics, incompatible identity systems and differing approaches that are compounded by a vast quantity of data sources.

As a result, advertisers still struggle to clearly explain, defend or unify results with full confidence.

“The industry has built extraordinary measurement capabilities, but advertiser confidence depends on how well those systems work together,” said Jon Watts, managing director, CIMM. “Advertisers are navigating real challenges around comparability and identity in an increasingly fragmented environment. Encouragingly, they don’t see those barriers as insurmountable. They’re not looking for a single source of truth, but clarity about how different truths relate. The opportunity now is alignment: shared definitions, greater transparency and interoperable systems that make measurement more actionable and trustworthy.”

“To drive real performance, we need more than just innovation–we need accountability,” said Ashwini Karandikar, 4As executive vice president of media, technology, and data. “​Agencies and their advertiser clients are pushing for a future-ready infrastructure where definitions are unified and methodologies are transparent. By pairing next-gen tools like AI with stronger industry guardrails, we ensure that every dollar is measurable, every assumption is verifiable, and every campaign is optimized against a reconciled, holistic view of the market.”

Based on a quantitative survey of 197 senior marketers and 16 in-depth executive interviews, the research explores how advertisers prioritize seven major measurement domains – Media Delivery, Media Verification, Audience Delivery, Attention Metrics, Brand Impact, Media Performance and Attribution Metrics – where confidence breaks down, and how expectations will evolve over time. Across all categories, 39% of advertisers ranked Media Performance (encompassing metrics such as CTR, CPA and ROAS) as the single most important domain today.

However, the study shows a growing focus on other measurement categories as well as performance. Advertisers expect Verification, Attention, Audience Delivery, and Brand Impact to grow significantly in importance over the next three to five years, even as confidence in these areas remains uneven due to limited standardization and lack of interoperability.

Cross-platform measurement and transparency around methodologies are seen as the two largest barriers to effective measurement over the next three to five years, with 43% of advertisers rating each as a major or severe barrier. A full 84% of advertisers foresee the impact of AI on measurement as the most consequential, far more than other potential technology advancements, speaking to the desire for faster interpretation, supplements to panel-based research and relief from the burden of reconciling disparate data sources.

Further, the study outlines four priorities to strengthen advertiser confidence:

• Stronger governance through shared definitions and standards
• Greater transparency into methodologies and modeling assumptions
• Innovation paired with guardrails that support trust and usability
• Investment in interoperable, future-ready infrastructure

To download an executive summary, visit: The Paradox of Plenty: Advertisers’ Perspectives on the State of Measurement. The full report, with the entire set of data survey results, will be made available exclusively to members of CIMM and 4As.

NEW YORK—In a move that will streamline compliance with state privacy rules, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced significant updates to its Multi-State Privacy Agreement (MSPA) that the group described as the most substantive amendments to the framework since 2023.

The updates are designed to aid advertisers’ compliance and business objectives by simplifying privacy law compliance, reducing partner contracting friction, closing contractual gaps, and strengthening protections under U.S. state privacy laws.

The IAB noted that as privacy enforcement accelerates across the U.S., advertisers face increasing business risk relating to the personal data flowing through agencies, ad tech vendors, measurement providers, and other downstream partners. Recent state enforcement actions have highlighted the fact that advertisers remain responsible for protecting consumer data, even when the data is shared with or otherwise activated by third parties.

“This update makes the MSPA an even more powerful tool for the digital advertising ecosystem,” said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “In a time of increasing enforcement and complexity, we’re giving advertisers and their partners a clear, trusted framework that simplifies compliance, accelerates collaboration, and protects them in a meaningful way. As adoption grows, the value multiplies—creating a shared standard that helps the entire industry move faster, with greater confidence, while reinforcing consumer trust and supporting the ad-supported internet people rely on every day.”

The revised MSPA introduces advertiser-specific updates that simplify compliance and speed adoption across the ecosystem, including a streamlined structure that increases accessibility for major brands and clarifies how ad tech partners may process personal data—creating a consistent compliance baseline across covered transactions without the need for custom contract amendments or repeated negotiations. The result is unlocked business opportunities and a quicker go-to-market approach with partners that are MSPA signatories, the IAB explained.

The group also stressed that state regulators are making clear that strong contractual controls over personal data are no longer optional.

Recent California enforcement actions involving Healthline Media and American Honda Motor Co. highlight, amongst other things, breakdowns tied to not having required privacy terms in contracts. In the Healthline enforcement action, California regulators highlighted that Healthline could, in part, return to CCPA compliance by complying with the MSPA.

More information is available here.

A new report from the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) casts doubt among those who think linear TV’s days are numbered.

According to the association’s 2026 Media Comparisons Study, TV, viewed on a television screen, has the highest reach and time spent of all media platforms studied, for all age groups and categories measured and in addition, the majority of those viewers are reached through broadcast TV.

The report, conducted by GfK/NIQ and commissioned by TVB, examined media use among adults 18+ on over 20 traditional and digital media platforms including free, paid ad-supported, and advertising-free streaming platforms, as well as user-generated and short-form content like YouTube. It measured linear broadcast viewing of programs on TV, mobile devices, websites/apps, and digital devices to get a complete picture of broadcast’s assets, TVB said.

In addition to analyzing reach and time spent, the study also looked at what news sources are considered most trustworthy, the level of community involvement, and motivation to do further research online.

The report also had more good news for local TV, as the majority of respondents (79%) cited local stations as their most trusted news source, with 47% of respondents citing local broadcast television assets as “most involved in their community.” Ranked at the bottom of the list were social media and news aggregator websites.

In terms of broadcast, the study reported that more time is spent with broadcast TV across all devices than with cable and streaming programs and that respondents spend far more time on broadcast TV than on user generated and short-form content like YouTube.

Other key findings of the study include:

• TV ads motivate viewers to do further research online.
• 85% of broadcast viewing is on the larger TV screen, while 51% of viewing time on platforms like YouTube is on smaller digital devices.
• Total broadcast assets can reach nine out of ten adults 18+ and in key categories.
• Broadcast websites, and broadcast TV on a digital device, added more reach to broadcast TV than cable and AVOD.
• When looking at long-form ad-supported programming, linear TV represents 68% of viewing time, while streaming represents 32%.
• Broadcast reaches 94% of ad-supported streamers who stream on their TV sets.
• Advertisers cannot reach ad-free streamers, but broadcast assets can reach 92% of them.

The survey covered a base sample of 4,000 and was conducted in November and December 2025.

TV ad impressions in the second half of 2025 shifted away from discretionary categories to infrastructure and essentials, with utilities climbing 48%, insurance rising 18% and pharma growing 12% in impressions, according to a new report from ad data and measurement firm Samba TV.

The report, “State of Advertising U.S. | H2 2025,” found the decline in discretionary categories was a response to “the weight of consumer caution,” according to Samba, known for Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology.

Of the top 20 advertisers, 15 increased spending. Overall, 56% of the top 100 U.S. advertisers increased TV ad impressions year-over-year. Household items, such as Febreze and Downy, as well as the pharmaceutical Tremfya, saw ad spending grow, while legacy brands like Toyota, Chase and Domino’s declined.

By category, the categories with the biggest percentage of ad-impression declines included career services, down 30% from H2 2024; apparel, footwear and accessories, down 18%; and food and beverage, down 13%, the report said.

The report also found that brands reached “the wrong audiences” and were “wasting ad dollars.” Samba based that conclusion on a “deep dive” into car-insurance advertising.

“TV ads are landing with aspirational, lifestyle-oriented consumers, while the value-conscious households actually in-market for a new policy are clustered elsewhere online,” resulting in an audience mismatch that means “billions in TV spend are being misallocated,” according to Samba. The company is able to determine there’s a problem based on its ability “to fuse TV viewership data with online behavior signals,” the report said.

The report revealed consumers who searched online for car insurance terms clustered around home interests like home décor and parenting, while audiences exposed to car insurance ads on TV clustered around fitness and nutrition and travel.

Among the top 20 U.S. advertisers based on year-over-year growth in ad impressions, the leader was mobile gaming company Dream Games, up more than 28,646%; cat-food brand Sheba, up 13,611%; movie maker 20th Century Studios, up 8,118%; and The Wellness Co., up 6,516%, the report said.

To request a copy of the report, visit the Samba website. Registration is required.

CINCINNATI—The E.W. Scripps Company has named Oliver Gray vice president, network sports and client partnerships, effective immediately.

In his new role, Gray will lead efforts to connect national advertisers with Scripps’ platforms – including its rapidly growing sports portfolio – and will work closely across Scripps’ network sales and Scripps Sports teams to develop integrated brand partnerships that deepen client relationships and drive revenue. He reports to Brian Norris, Scripps executive vice president and chief revenue officer, and is based in New York.

“Oliver brings a strong track record of driving revenue growth across television and digital, with deep expertise across sports and streaming,” said Norris. “His vision for translating fandom into meaningful business results will help advertisers tap into Scripps’ premium sports and entertainment portfolio in powerful new ways.”

Gray brings more than 15 years of success in sports sponsorship and national media advertising sales. Most recently, as head of East Coast sales and partnerships at digital sports media company Overtime, he led a sales team to exceed revenue goals, securing new business from national brands including Dunkin, Hershey, Delta, DraftKings, Coca‑Cola and The Home Depot.

Previously, Gray helped lead Amazon’s sales and marketing partnership with the National Football League (NFL) for “Thursday Night Football.” His career spans digital sales and marketing leadership positions with CNN, Discovery Communications and TV Guide Network. He also served as The Slate Group’s dedicated representative for Magna, Mediavest, Starcom and other agencies.

Gray holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University. He is also engaged in community service as founder of Project Come Up and as a volunteer with iMentor.

WINTER PARK, Fla.—With the rapid growth of digital ad spending in the U.S., Spincast has received a new U.S. patent for technologies that enable AI-powered shoppable TV so that consumers could directly buy products and services while watching premium content.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Spincast U.S. Patent No. 12,556,771, titled "Video System With Intra-Video User Input and Related Methods" for technologies that enable consistent, frictionless "buy what you see" AI-powered shoppable TV transactions within premium video content, without the frustration of scanning QR codes or intrusive ad overlays that disrupt the shared-screen TV viewing experience.

"Our AI technology is a game-changer for shoppable TV, allowing us to make every ad and moment on screen actionable and shoppable. We can even re-monetize past product placement deals found in evergreen content," explained Daniel H. Thompson, founder and CEO of Spincast.

Spincast said its offering eliminates inconsistent shoppability across platforms, channels and shows and provides an integrated experience compatible with major TV ecosystems. The company added that, unlike some solutions, it does not require disabling studio-grade anti-piracy protections that could expose premium content to piracy risks.

More information is available at spincasttv.com.

BELLEVUE, Wash.—iSpot, a cross-platform TV ad measurement and attribution company, has announced the launch of iSpot SAGE, an agentic AI-powered platform that the company says revolutionizes how independent measurement can be leveraged to unlock new insights, accelerate workflows, drive better consumer connections and assure advertising effectiveness.

As part of the launch, iSpot also announced that it has made a significant investment in NVIDIA AI services so that SAGE can generate deep insights from its data. That investment reflected the fact that substantial compute is required to extract metadata and storylines from every frame of every ad (2.5 million ads) and to compile themes from every verbatim survey response (~100M verbatims).

iSpot said that SAGE was developed over two years with active input and testing from some of America’s top brands, such as General Motors who expressed support for the product.

“The market has made it clear that a trusted model, grounded in expert data, is the only AI they want for their video investments. iSpot SAGE delivers on this by pairing the productivity gains of AI with a partner who knows their data better than anyone, eliminating the doubt and manual busy work that has plagued campaign optimization for years,” said Miles Drayton, global director, marketing intelligence, General Motors.

The iSpot SAGE platform’s agentic AI builds on years of investment into research and development as the company sought to perfect machine learning models applied to its robust and foundational advertising data set. It also marks the next generation of applications and capabilities for iSpot, which first modernized TV ad measurement by introducing real-time comprehensive ad intelligence using machine learning and automations starting in 2012.

“iSpot is the leader in real-time video ad analytics across creative, audience and outcomes,” says Sean Muller, CEO, founder, iSpot. “Now we are putting our massive proprietary intelligence to work in AI models that the industry can trust, and with our continued mission to modernize the TV marketplace with insights that are fast, accurate and actionable.”

The first wave of product availability is focused on helping marketers forge previously impossible connections between creative elements, consumer perceptions and industry intelligence.

The company also stressed that iSpot SAGE moves beyond generalist AI by offering a suite of specialized tools that immediately transforms often-burdensome data pulls and analyses into production deliverables and actionable insight.

Key aspects of iSpot SAGE for Creative include:

• Expert Agents for Performance and Strategy: iSpot SAGE for Creative deploys two key agents: the Creative Insights Analyst for diagnosing performance and the Creative Planning Assistant for generating strategic recommendations, designed to provide expert analysis and insights in real-time.
• Workflow Automation (Beta): Users can instantly generate data-driven creative briefs, script outlines, and storyboard directions, dramatically accelerating the path from insight to production.
• Competitive Intelligence: With iSpot SAGE for creative, the industry will be able to unlock multi-brand analysis, enabling marketers to run direct, in-depth comparisons against competitor ads and themes.

The core value of iSpot SAGE is its foundation in a historically comprehensive data set that generalist AI models cannot replicate. iSpot described these key features of those capabilities:

• Deep Creative Insights: With AI-powered, frame-by-frame analysis — including storyline and transcript generation — combined with direct feedback from persistent consumer surveys, iSpot SAGE effectively categorizes ads into themes and super-themes, then scores those themes against key metrics such as likability, attention and purchase intent. By tagging storylines, characters, settings and product details, SAGE is able to link specific creative elements to performance.
• Granular Performance Metrics: Marketers gain full access to ad-level Ace Scores (Likability, Attention, Watchability) and Purchase Intent metrics, tied directly to specific creative themes within the ads.
• Precision & Scale: iSpot SAGE supports advanced audience slicing, allowing users to filter results by specific demographics and high-value "Intender" segments (consumers planning to buy). The platform is built for enterprise use with improved collaboration features capable of processing a large volume of ads from multiple brands and campaigns simultaneously.

To learn more about iSpot SAGE, visit https://www.ispot.tv/sage-ai.

HUNT VALLEY, Md., and ST. GEORGE, Utah—Whole fruit, vegetable and fiber supplements provider Balance of Nature has joined Sinclair as a presenting sponsor of the media organization’s Amazing America 250: From Neighborhood to Nation,” its multiplatform media initiative honoring communities in celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial.

Amazing America 250 will be featured across Sinclair’s local broadcast stations, digital platforms, multicast networks and AMP Media properties. The effort delivers uplifting stories that reflect the strength, resilience and innovation of communities nationwide.

Amazing America 250 will run through July with original programming, local storytelling, national specials and community-driven content designed to unite viewers around the stories that define the American experience.

Balance of Nature will be integrated across Sinclair’s multi-platform ecosystem, including local and national news features, community storytelling segments and conversations with Balance of Nature CEO Lex Howard and founder Dr. Douglas Howard.

“Amazing America 250 is a powerful platform for bringing brands, communities and storytelling together around a historic milestone for our country,” said Rob Weisbord, chief operating officer and president of Local Media at Sinclair.

“Balance of Nature is a well-suited partner for this initiative with a mission that complements our commitment to enriching local lives and celebrating the people and values that unite communities across the country. Together, we’re proud to showcase stories that reflect both national pride and everyday well-being.”

Balance of Nature invests in people values and principles strengthening local communities through its Rooted in America initiative.

“America’s 250th anniversary is a moment to reflect on what makes this country strong, the people, the communities and the values that endure,” said Lex Howard, CEO of Balance of Nature. “Partnering with Sinclair on Amazing America 250 gives us a powerful way to honor those stories and reinforce what Balance of Nature stands for: healthy living, personal responsibility, and meaningful connection across America.”

More information on Amazing America 250 is available online.

More information on Sinclair and Balance of Nature is available online.

NEW YORK—Ad-supported television represented 74.2% of overall TV viewing in the fourth quarter 2025, according to Nielsen’s newly released Q4 Ad Supported Gauge, hitting a peak for the viewing share of ad-supported content in 2025.

Compared to Q3 2025, ad supported viewing was up 9%, outpacing the 7% increase in total TV viewing, as football and young adults helped drive upticks.

Audiences spent 45.6% of their ad supported viewing time with streaming, 29.6% with broadcast, and 24.8% with cable. Broadcast experienced the largest quarterly jump of any ad supported viewing category throughout all of 2025 in Q4, capturing a 22% increase and adding 3.2 share points. Football was a major driver for broadcast, as sports viewing surged by 135%, almost doubling its Q3 share of the category to 34% .

Overall, the ad supported broadcast category saw its biggest increase among 25-34 year olds (up 41%), but the key demographic groups of 18-49 and 25-54 also saw increases of 31% and 29%, respectively.

Now in its fourth edition, Nielsen’s Ad Supported Gauge, an extension of The Gauge™, provides the industry with the broadest view of the portion of television that delivers advertising across broadcast, cable and streaming. These new insights provide advertisers and agencies with an essential, up-to-date view of opportunities to connect with consumers across ad-supported platforms.

NEW YORK—The Media Rating Council (MRC) has issued a final document outlining requirements, guidance, and best practices for Digital Advertising Auction Transparency.

As part of its ongoing effort to develop standards for media measurement, the document represents MRC’s effort to set standards for transparency, disclosure and reporting of various aspects and results for digital advertising auctions, including but not limited to display, text, video and audio formats within digital, search, social, retail media, streaming CTV and addressable TV channels.

Despite the growth and diversity of ad auctions in media, there were previously no standards for "Ad Auctioneer conduct regarding disclosure and reporting of auction rules or transparency into auction processes and outcomes,” said Ron Pinelli, senior vice president of digital research and standards for MRC. “It is the objective of these Standards to promote transparency around auction rules and scoring along with reporting and standardization where possible and appropriate, to ensure that auction rules and outcomes are understood for all parties.”

The Standards originated from a project initiated by Omnicom Media and led by the MRC, with sponsorship from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) as well as Omnicom.

The MRC reported that they were developed with the participation of a large group of media content providers, advertising agencies, advertisers, vendors/consultants, ad auctioneers, measurement organizations and other interested organizations. The final document was subject to a 30-day public comment period in September 2025.

“Digital advertising runs on auctions, but buyers still can’t typically see the rules of the game,” said Ben Hovaness, Global Chief Media Officer for Omnicom Media agency OMD. “The MRC standards create a baseline for disclosure and reporting—how an auction scores, sets prices, uses reserves, and changes over time—so advertisers can validate outcomes, improve their bid strategies, and reduce waste that never reaches working media."

This effort is not aimed at any one platform, ad auctioneer, or auction type; nor is the intention to to replace or alter existing industry protocols such as OpenRTB to communicate auction information, but to supplement them with guidance regarding methods disclosures and outcome reporting, the MRC stressed.

The MRC also said that it does not intend to stipulate or standardize the design of any auction type, as auctioneer companies can and should design auction systems to best suit the particular characteristics of a given media form.

Summarizing the desired outcome, Pinelli said, “The goal is to define the requisites for transparency and to provide guidance to auctioneers in explaining to advertisers how their auctions determine pricing and allocation and providing accountability through reporting.”

The Standards include requirements and guidelines related to disclosures and reporting in the following areas:

• Type(s) of auction system(s) used.
• How winners of auctions are determined.
• After the winners of an auction have been determined, how prices that winners must pay are set.
• Use of reserve prices and methods to update them over time.
• Use of advance information about bids and budgets to adjust the functioning of the auction process and how this is updated over time.
• How often rules of the auction system are updated and disclosed to users?
• What information is disclosed or reported about the auction system and the outcome of auction.

The document is available here.

Questions on this document can be submitted via email to MRC at: rpinelli@mediaratingcouncil.org.

NEW YORK—Xumo, the streaming joint venture between Comcast and Charter Communications, has announced that it is working with The Trade Desk to provide a new way for advertisers to access Xumo’s premium streaming inventory through The Trade Desk's OpenPath.

“Direct paths to supply matter more than ever as buyers seek efficiency, transparency and certainty,” said Jerrold Son, vice president, advertising revenue operations, Xumo. “By integrating OpenPath and UID2, we’re reducing the friction that can weigh down performance from the ad stack and giving advertisers a clearer, more efficient route to viewers across Xumo’s fast-growing ecosystem.”

The new access enables advertisers and their agencies to seamlessly connect with Xumo’s ecosystem, which reaches more than 60 million monthly active users across streaming devices, smart TVs, and ad-supported streaming channels. Further, OpenPath helps reduce layers in the ad tech stack and supports identity-aware buying across CTV.

The announcement also builds on Xumo’s recently introduced advanced identity solution, which incorporates Unified ID 2.0 (UID2). Initially developed by The Trade Desk, UID2 is an open-source framework using a hashed and salted identifier across devices and media ecosystems to help create a consistent advertising experience. Enabling this infrastructure allows Xumo’s advanced identity solution to establish even more deterministic targeting across CTV.

Together, these efforts reflect Xumo’s broader strategy to simplify supply routes and maximize the value of every dollar through more seamless connections to the buyside tools advertisers rely on to access premium streaming inventory.

“Connected TV represents some of the best digital media inventory available, yet the majority of the media buys remain locked in transactional and linear methods,” said Will Doherty, senior vice president of inventory partnerships, The Trade Desk. “Xumo’s use of OpenPath demonstrates that programmatic opportunity in CTV will continue to grow, and by connecting through FreeWheel, we expect the tide to rise for everyone in CTV – advertisers, publishers, and consumers.”

As the CTV marketplace evolves, Xumo is focused on providing advertisers simpler, more accountable ways to reach streaming audiences at scale. The inventory access through OpenPath represents another step toward a more efficient and transparent buying experience, designed to help advertisers maximize performance while supporting a healthy premium streaming ecosystem.

PASADENA, Calif.—A new report from tvScientific finds performance TV is the No. 1 channel for marketers’ ad investment, accounting for 24% of total media spending and tied with social media as the most effective channel for delivering results.

The “2026 State of Performance TV Report” finds that budgets are shifting away from YouTube, Meta and TikTok and that artificial intelligence is turning television into an always-on experimentation engine for marketers, allowing them to accelerate ad targeting, creative development and optimization.

Performance TV is an advertising model that combines the reach and impact of traditional TV with the precise targeting, real-time data and measurable outcomes of digital platforms, through the use of connected TV platforms, including Roku and Apple TV.

“Performance TV is no longer an experiment,” tvScientific CEO and Co-Founder Jason Fairchild said. “It has matured into one of the most reliable and accountable growth channels in modern marketing.

“Performance marketers are no longer testing TV at the margins,” he continued. “They are moving the budget to make room for it and putting it at the center of their media strategies. Performance TV delivers the scale of television with the precision, transparency, accountability and fully transparent ROAS [return on ad spend] measurement marketers need to drive real business outcomes.”

The report also found:

• Performance TV delivers full-funnel value, driving sales growth and brand lift.
• More than half of markers cite measurement clarity as critical to success.
• 77% of small and midsized businesses run performance TV campaigns.

“Performance TV is now foundational to modern marketing strategies,” Fairchild said. “It delivers the accountability marketers have always wanted from television with the scale and impact they still need.”

The “2026 State of Performance TV Report” analyzes channel effectiveness, budget movement, AI adoption, transparency expectations, and how performance TV is reshaping growth strategies.

tvScientific offers a performance advertising platform built for performance TV.

NEW YORK—The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released a new study predicting 9.5% year-over-year growth in U.S. ad spend, accelerated by major cyclical events like the mid-term elections and Olympics. Its annual 2026 Outlook Study also shows clear shift toward performance-led strategies and the increasing use of agentic AI in shaping how marketing decisions are planned, activated, and optimized.

The 2026 Outlook Study, “A Snapshot into U.S. Ad Spend, Opportunities, and Strategies for Growth,” is based on insights from more than 200 brands and agency buyers.

“Our report shows that in this growth cycle, innovation and experimentation are firmly taking priority as the market is being structurally reimagined”, said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “The encouraging news is that buyers are still looking at 2026 as a year of growth despite a lot of potentially destabilizing forces. The industry is working with AI-powered tools that are constantly improving and are delivering both efficiency and effectiveness to marketers. We remain encouraged and optimistic about the opportunities in the year ahead.”

One notable finding in this year’s study is the fact that AI has become the defining force shaping marketing priorities in 2026, with advertisers rapidly embedding the technology across planning, activation, and measurement. The report finds that five of the six top areas of increased focus for advertisers are now directly tied to AI including the proliferation of autonomous and agentic solutions, underscoring how quickly these capabilities have moved from emerging tools to core industry infrastructure.

As agentic AI-driven media planning and campaign execution accelerates, advertisers are placing greater emphasis on measurement and accountability, with cross-platform measurement rising to 72%, up from 64% year over year, reflecting the need to connect AI-orchestrated implementation with outcomes.

These priorities also show how buyers are rapidly recalibrating around autonomous decisioning, optimization and planning systems, with two-thirds now focused on agentic AI for ad buying and campaign execution, the study found.

This shift is further underscored by the fact that 73% of marketers are now prioritizing content optimized for AI-generated answers, revealing how AI is shaping not just delivery, but the structure of creative and search visibility across platforms.

“AI is no longer a siloed initiative – it’s the connective tissue that links media, measurement, creative, and customer experience,” said Chris Bruderle, vice president, Industry Insights & Content Strategy, IAB. ”But what’s changing in 2026 is how AI is being deployed – not just as a tool but as an intelligent partner coordinating campaigns in real time. Agentic AI is moving us toward fully autonomous systems that can plan, activate and optimize with speed and scale.”

The study also highlighted the ongoing growth of digital along with declines in the linear TV ad spend.

With total U.S. ad spend projected to grow 9.5% in 2026, digital continues to outpace the broader market, with double-digit gains expected across social media (+14.6%), connected TV (+13.8%), and commerce media (+12.1%). These channels are increasingly central to marketers' performance strategies, powered by AI-driven targeting and measurement innovations.

Meanwhile, linear TV is forecasted to decline by 1.7%, a slower rate than in previous years, buoyed by a unique alignment of major media events. The Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and U.S. midterm elections are expected to deliver temporary spikes in viewership and advertiser demand, offering short-term stabilization to an otherwise contracting channel.

Another major trend is the development and impact of new marketing priorities, the researchers noted.

A new hierarchy of marketing priorities reflects evolving consumer behavior and the AI learning curve, as buyers balance near-term performance pressures with longer-term shifts in how strategies are built and optimized. Adapting to changing consumer habits is now the top investment focus (44%), surpassing macroeconomic factors, while 38% of buyers cite understanding generative AI as a major challenge, up 14 points from 2025, underscoring the need for deeper AI fluency and strategic application.

While customer acquisition remains the top objective for buyers (54%), that figure has declined 10 points year over year, indicating shifting priorities. At the same time, the focus on driving repeat purchases (25%) has grown steadily, and nearly doubled since 2024 (13%). As advertisers increasingly integrate agentic AI to manage budget pacing, audience planning, and campaign optimization, retention strategies are becoming more efficient – and more scalable. This reflects a broader shift toward retention-driven growth among mid-size and large advertisers, who are seeking more predictable and profitable outcomes.

“Brands are clearly rebalancing their growth strategies as acquisition costs rise and first-party data ecosystems mature,” added Bruderle. “AI – particularly agentic AI – is poised to enable marketers to activate those data assets more intelligently, driving personalization, loyalty, and repeat purchase at scale. With commerce media, clean rooms, CRM onboarding, and loyalty programs now reaching millions of known customers, repeat purchase is becoming a primary growth engine — not just a support tactic.”

The official “2026 Outlook Study: A Snapshot into U.S. Ad Spend, Opportunities, and Strategies for Growth,” is available here for download.

NEW YORK—Madhavi Tadikonda has joined E.W. Scripps as senior director of network sales, tasked with spearheading advertising sales for its portfolio of networks across all platforms and brands.

A 25-year media veteran, she most recently was executive director and head of investment at global media agency EssenceMediacom, where she oversaw media investment and strategy partnerships with Coca-Cola, Adidas, Target, Airbnb, JPMorgan Chase, Indeed, Bayer, Ally Bank, Nationwide and American Airlines, Scripps said.

“Madhavi brings an outstanding reputation and a proven track record from the agency side, where she built and led investment teams, negotiated high-value partnerships and delivered growth for many of the world’s most recognizable brands,” said Tony Song, head of network and advanced media sales at Scripps, to whom Tadikonda will report. “Her extensive experience and deep understanding of the media landscape make her a valuable addition to Scripps’ sales organization. We could not be more thrilled to have her on board.”

Tadikonda, who will be nased in New York, has negotiated and overseen traditional and media investments for more than 100 brands across all platforms, including linear, CTV, sports, streaming and social, Scripps said. Prior to EssenceMediacom, she held senior roles at Havas Media Group and Canvas Worldwide. She started her career at Bates Worldwide and McCann Erickson, moving on to management positions with The Martin Agency and Initative, Scripps said.

“Scripps’ diverse portfolio, commitment to innovation and being a leader in women’s sports create incredible opportunities to deliver value for marketing partners,” Tadikonda said. “I look forward to leveraging my experience to help drive growth and elevate the company’s position in the marketplace.”

A graduate of the University of Miami, Tadikonda was recognized as U.S. Campaign’s Media Buyer of the Year in 2021, as a member of The Drum’s 2020 Who’s Who in Marketing and as a 4A’s Vanguard executive sponsor.

TORONTO—The independent supply-side ad platform Index Exchange Inc. has announced new capabilities using Gracenote that enables show-level transparency, brand suitability and post-campaign reporting for advertisers using its platform.

Spectrum Reach is among the first media partners to adopt the solution, bringing premium streaming inventory to market with enriched contextual signals and program-level reporting, the platform said.

The new features build on a recently announced agreement between Index and Gracenote that introduced what Index is calling the industry’s first SSP integration with Gracenote IDs to support show-level transparency, brand suitability, and post-campaign reporting.

The new capabilities also mean that Index will provide buyers with a count of show-level impressions, giving brands a proof of purchase across their streaming investments on Spectrum Reach inventory transacted through Index, while ensuring that no user information is associated with the reporting.

“Marketers want deeper transparency and more actionable signals in streaming TV, and we are focused on making these capabilities simple to access through programmatic,” said James Wilhite, vice president of product at Index Exchange. “Offering Gracenote-powered show-level reporting today underscores our commitment to advancing measurement and bringing meaningful innovation to both buyers and publishers.”

Index explained that for buyers, the solution offers a streamlined way to access deeper visibility into where ads ran and how they performed across streaming TV.

Program-level reporting helps marketers evaluate adjacency, ensure brand suitability, and strengthen planning and optimization decisions, all without additional workflow complexity or reliance on segment-based activation. This level of transparency also enables marketers to understand the types of shows and content themes that perform well for their campaigns, informing future strategies even when they choose not to activate specific Gracenote segments.

For media owners, the capability introduces a scalable and privacy-safe method of bringing contextual data to programmatic marketplaces. Spectrum Reach’s early adoption demonstrates how media owners can use Gracenote metadata to differentiate streaming supply, improve transparency for media buyers, and retain full control over when and how program-level information is shared, the companies said.

“Gracenote and Index are working together to make content-based data more interoperable and practical for modern ad buying,” said Jake Richardson, vice president of partnerships at Gracenote. “Our content ID graph helps unlock a clearer view of program-level performance, and this new capability with Index supports stronger outcomes for both sides of the ecosystem.”

“The combination of transparency and high-quality, privacy-focused data are the foundation of smart media investments and help drive better decisions,” added Daniel Callahan, senior vice president and chief revenue officer at Spectrum Reach. “Working with Index Exchange and Gracenote helps us provide advertisers with even more enriched streaming inventory in a way that benefits both advertisers and viewers.”

LOS ANGELES—Allen Media Group (AMG) has formed a strategic partnership with Infillion to power advanced advertising across its streaming services, leveraging the company’s TrueX interactive ad technology and programmatic video solutions.

Infillion is a technology and media company that connects brands with audiences through measurable advertising experiences. The collaboration combines AMG’s portfolio of streaming platforms with Infillion’s innovation in interactive video and marks a key step in AMG’s ongoing digital transformation, AMG said.

Advertisers increasingly seek solutions that merge storytelling with precision targeting and measurable outcomes in the connected TV (CTV) space–delivering smarter, more engaging, and effective advertising experiences for viewers and brands, it said.

Infillion’s premium ad technology, advanced programmatic and interactive video solutions will power new advertising capabilities.

“Partnering with Infillion brings a more efficient, engagement-driven ad experience to streaming,” said Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, “This technology strengthens the value we deliver to advertisers while advancing our mission to serve communities with quality, localized content.”

More information is available on the AMG and Infillion websites.

NEW YORK—Hearst Television said it promoted Mike Kronenfeld to vice president, national sales. The television ad sales and management veteran joined the station group in 2023 as director, national sales.

In his new post, Kronenfeld will continue to report to Hearst Vice President, Sales Gerry McGavick and Executive Vice President and Group Head Eric Meyrowitz, the company said.

“Mike has long been revered as one of the most accomplished television sales executives in the national advertising marketplace and we are fortunate to have had him advocating for Hearst Television for a substantial portion of his career,” Hearst Television President Michael J. Hayes said. “As a partner and as an employee, he has successfully delivered outstanding results throughout. His sales acumen and his extensive management experience make him an excellent fit for this important role as we develop more solutions for marketing partners in a dynamically changing competitive marketplace.”

Kronenfeld joined Hearst Television in 2023 from Katz Television, where he was executive vice president, leading the group responsible for representing Hearst Television exclusively and serving on the Katz executive leadership team. Prior to Katz, he was CEO of The CW affiliate WBNX-TV Cleveland.

Kronenfeld also worked as president and chief operating officer of pioneering broadcast industry rep firm Adam Young Inc. and was on the executive management team of station group Young Broadcasting. He also ascended through the media buying ranks at ad agency BBDO, Hearst said. He started his career at television rep firm HRP.

Kronenfeld has also served the Television Bureau of Advertising’s Sales Advisory Committee. He earned a psychology degree with a concentration in communications from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Hearst Television owns and operates 35 television stations and two radio stations, as well as Hearst Media Production Group and the Very Local app.

IRVING, Texas—Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is jumping into the branded content business with an announcement that the company is launching The Nexstar Brand Studio.

The in-house strategic and creative hub will work to connect advertisers to the company’s portfolio of media properties, including local stations, The CW and NewsNation, with plans to offer branded series, specials, and podcasts, entertainment and sports integrations and activations, and talent and influencer campaigns.

“The Nexstar Brand Studio enables advertisers to become part of the stories that move our audiences,” said Laura Lamattina, Nexstar’s senior vice president of marketing solutions & brand partnerships. “It’s not just about placement—it’s about partnership. Together, we can illuminate campaigns that resonate, inspire, and deliver measurable results.”

Nexstar also announced the studio’s first production, “My American Story,” a year-long cross-platform campaign celebrating the diverse voices and values that define the U.S. as it approaches the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the Republic.

“My American Story” will showcase powerful personal narratives from across the nation in special video vignettes of varying length—including firefighters, veterans, teachers, student athletes, farmers, small business owners, artists, individuals living with disabilities, Olympians-turned-WWE wrestlers, and NASCAR drivers.

“As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, Nexstar and our new content studio are uniquely positioned to tell the nation’s story — not from one city or one network, but from every community across the country,” said Dan Lanzano, president of National Advertising Sales. “‘My American Story’ reflects the heart of who we are — local, authentic, and deeply connected to the people and places that make this country extraordinary.”

Sponsored by Safelite, “My American Story” aired its first feature last month, with NASCAR driver Connor Zilisch sharing his personal story during the NASCAR Playoff Race from Talladega. Nexstar’s full portfolio of media properties will begin participating in the campaign this week, when spots will air across the company’s national and local platforms.

Audiences can experience expanded content on The CW App, NewsNation App, and the just-launched website MyAmericanStory.TV, where viewers can upload and share their own stories.

The company noted that “My American Story” is just one element of Nexstar’s companywide, cross-platform, year-long celebration of America at 250 years old. Additional programming and branded content offerings include:

• "Main Street USA" – A limited NewsNation series highlighting small businesses and entrepreneurs revitalizing their communities.
• "Celebrating Main Street on Route 66" – Coming in Spring 2026, special programming honoring the 100th anniversary of America’s most iconic highway, capturing the heart of the nation through its towns and travelers.
• Special Broadcast Events – Live televised celebrations of special events including Veterans Day tributes honoring those who have proudly served our country, The Boston Pops Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular, and a NASCAR street race at Naval Base Coronado.

NEW YORK—Nielsen's Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-side platforms (DSPs) with easy access to Gracenote's standardized program-level metadata. That access facilitates precise program-level ad targeting, better CTV campaign performance and transparent post-campaign reporting, the company said.

Gracenote said that Media buyers can use Gracenote Content Connect in a range of ways to suit their workflows. They can either directly access the platform for "hands-on-keyboard" creation of private marketplace (PMP) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals, or they can leverage their partner SSPs or DSPs to create, manage and activate deals on their behalf.

The flexible platform taps Gracenote's proprietary content ID graph made up of standardized program metadata organized in a structured taxonomy and connected by unique identifiers. This ensures both ad buyers and sellers are using a common language in relation to programming, a key necessity when shows are widely available across different ad-supported CTV platforms and services, the company explained.

"Gracenote data is widely recognized as the media industry's gold-standard for powering consumer entertainment search and discovery broadly," said Kanishk Prasad, vice president of product at Gracenote. "By opening up access to content-based signals which enable smarter CTV ad targeting and better campaign performance, we're taking a big step towards giving advertisers transparency, control and maximum scale across all CTV platforms."

Gracenote also reported that the platform provides users with visibility into key content signals such as genre, rating and mood, as they bid on CTV inventory and target messages at the program level. This gives them full control over brand safety and ensures privacy-compliant placements while still delivering the scale needed to meet campaign objectives.

Gracenote will preview the new Content Connect platform on an appointment-only basis at CES running January 6 - 8, 2026.

For more information, visit Gracenote.com.

In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor’s office. Revenue spikes upwards on even-numbered years as a pulse of political advertising pumps into the system and declines in odd-numbered years between the regular cycles of midterm and presidential elections.

Not surprisingly, analysts and top station executives predict a similar pattern for 2026, which will see a burst of spending around the midterm elections, the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. BIA Advisory Services, for example, predicts the $14.51 billion in local TV over-the-air (OTA) ad revenue in 2025 will grow 25.5% to $18.18 billion next year.

Smoothing out the spikes of political advertising, S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan Research predicts a cumulative annual growth rate of 1.48% between 2025 and 2030 for TV station ad revenue.

Even so, most analysts readily admit that the prognosis for a healthy ad market over the next year or two is particularly uncertain. While the rollout of NextGen TV and industry-wide consolidation could boost revenue several years down the road, they are unlikely to have a major impact on the 2026 ad market, which could easily be derailed by a variety of economic issues.

“Who knows what will happen with tariffs?” Rick Ducey, managing director of BIA Advisory Services, explained. “Who knows what will happen with inflation and interest rates? Who knows about employment…and consumer confidence and AI spending, which has been a key driver of the economy?”

“The economy is really a big wildcard,” added Brian Wieser, principal at Madison and Wall and a financial analyst of the global advertising, technology and marketing services sectors. “Unless you believe that everything economists have said in the last 100, 200 years is wrong, there are real risks. And it’s not just uncertainty. It’s the certainty that bad economic policies have consequences.”

Political Uncertainty
Even political advertising, which has been reliably breaking records year after year for decades, is potentially more volatile than ever. Ducey noted that the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in the National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission case, challenging existing spending limits, could increase or tamp down political advertising. Likewise, efforts to gerrymander congressional districts in Texas, California and other states could also have a major impact on spending.

“In terms of political advertising, we are anticipating about $3.8 billion next year, up about 10% from the last midterms,” Justin Nielson, head of Kagan Research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said. “That is not as high as it was in 2024 but relative to the midterms, very healthy.”

BIA is predicting a slightly higher $4.2 billion local OTA TV political ad spend.

Tariffs are another wildcard. “Tariffs have had an impact in terms of consumer spending, but not to the point where it’s made a huge difference in terms of the advertising marketplace,” Nielson said. “Advertising has still been coming in pretty heavily,” and some industries like auto are seeing a spending rebound.

An even bigger worry is the longer-term shift of ad dollars from linear TV and local TV to digital and streaming.

Core Concerns
Excluding political from the 20206 numbers, “we actually have a year-over-year decline [in core OTA TV ad revenue] because dollars are shifting to CTV and digital,” noted Senan Mele, vice president of forecasting and data analysis at BIA. This decline would actually be worse, he added, without the beneficial impact of the Olympics and other special events in 2026 like the World Cup.

“Agencies and advertisers want to be able to report the ROI on ad investments and it’s easier to do that with a digital platform compared to TV over the air,” he concluded.

Reversing that trend is a major priority for broadcasters, both with better measurement tools and revamped cross-platform sales strategies.

“We want to make sure that we bring in unique content to the viewers, and that’s really helping us,” Gray’s Steber said, pointing to efforts like the programming produced by its InvestigateTV unit and the content available on its Local News Now 24/7 free streaming channel. “People are hungry for content that’s unique.”

No Simple Cures
Analysts, however, had mixed reactions to broadcasters’ hopes that the rollout of ATSC 3.0, broadcast ownership deregulation and a wave of M&A activity will have much of an impact on 2026 ad revenue.

Most noted that ATSC 3.0’s impact is several years away, given the limited penetration of sets, and were skeptical that deregulation and the creation of larger station groups would immediately strengthen their ad business.

“Advertisers want to make sure that they’re reaching folks no matter where they are, and they want a very cohesive plan,” Ronna Steber, senior managing vice president at Gray Media, said. “So, we’ve worked really hard to be able to offer them complete plans, linear, digital, social” while deploying better measurement and analytics to “make sure that those ad campaigns are delivering on all the analytics that the advertisers want.”

“While digital spend is going up and spending is shifting away from linear media like radio and TV, some of that shift now goes back in their pockets because they’re selling different inventory,” Ducey added. Efforts by local broadcasters to acquire more sports and boost original programming have helped their ad sales, he added.

“It certainly won’t help them compete with bigger platforms,” Wieser said. “Marketers are shifting away from television because of what digital platforms can offer…The reality is that with less fragmentation, you may even have less diversity in the business model, which is a surefire way to amplify the current trends [of ad market share losses]. Size isn’t what’s causing budgets to shift.”

Mele at BIA agreed that consolidation in itself won’t reverse shifts towards CTV but added that it “could help with ad revenue at a station level in specific markets because…there will be fewer sellers.”

Even so, analysts at BIA and other firms highlighted some positive trends.

“The two big highlights for me in terms of positive impact to the ad market have been local sports rights in certain markets and their increasing ability to offer a full suite of linear, digital and social packages to advertisers,” Nielson said. “Being able to offer [a unified, one-stop] advertising business model and investing in local programming is producing an encouraging ROI.”

In a rollout that will further heighten the competition between streaming services and local broadcasters, Prime Video is rolling out location-based interactive video ads in the U.S.

The location-based interactive ads allow advertisers to tailor their national TV commercials with location-specific content, such as local pricing, nearest dealership information, or local agent details.

This feature also allows advertisers to transform a single TV commercial into thousands of variants based on ZIP codes or tens of variations based on states without creating multiple creative assets. Advertisers can customize both messaging and clickthrough URLs for their ads through the Amazon DSP Video template, Amazon reported.

The solution will be particularly important in attracting national ad dollars and national advertisers who invest in TV advertising but struggle to effectively communicate their local value proposition, Amazon said. The solution not only enhances creative efficiency but also delivers a more relevant viewing experience for Prime Video's audience, bridging the gap between national campaigns and local relevance, the company said.

NEW YORK—IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, has announced the release of device attestation support in the industry standard Open Measurement SDK (OM SDK).

This new capability is supported on Apple devices and Amazon Fire TV and is designed to further strengthen efforts to combat widespread device spoofing and to provide buyers, sellers and verification companies with greater confidence in the environments where ads are delivered, the lab said.

“OM SDK gave buyers standardized, consistent measurement metrics across screens and devices,” IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur said. “The Device Attestation capability builds on that and provides a critical next step for CTV growth. Buyers should prioritize the OM SDK because it is the only measurement standard built on device-native signals, not inferred data. And with attestation, they can be confident the inventory they are measuring is real.”

The new capability helps address a fundamental vulnerability in connected TV and mobile advertising: the misrepresentation of device information or device spoofing, where bad actors falsify device information to appear as premium inventory. This leads to wasted ad spend for buyers and lost revenue for sellers, the IAB Tech Lab explained.

Adopting IETF's Privacy Pass Protocol for the digital ads verification use case, the Device Attestation capability in OM SDK enables buyers to independently verify they are buying genuine CTV and mobile inventory from sellers, thanks to privacy-preserving attestations made by device manufacturers for their devices. This adds another valuable signal that can strengthen the industry's ability to detect and prevent device spoofing, the IAB reported.

“Device spoofing is a significant attack vector for bad actors generating invalid traffic across several General and Sophisticated IVT categories required to be detected and filtered as part of MRC Standards,” Ron Pinelli, senior vice president of digital research and standards, Media Rating Council (MRC), said. “MRC appreciates the opportunity to be involved in and support the development of this important enhancement to OM SDK that can be used by the ad-tech ecosystem to enhance IVT detection and measurement capabilities.”

This release builds on the OM SDK’s role as a shared measurement foundation since 2018, enabling third-party verification of impressions and viewability across CTV and mobile environments. Device attestation in OM SDK takes verification even further, helping the industry build trust in individual sellers and supply paths by allowing participants to demonstrate the authenticity of devices in the inventory they are selling, the group said.

For buyers, device attestation means cleaner measurement and reduced waste from fraudulent inventory. For sellers and app developers, it protects monetization by signaling attested supply paths. For verification companies, it creates a new seller and supply chain-level signal representing device authenticity.

"Device-spoofing represents a significant threat in today's advertising landscape," said Neal Richter, director, Amazon DSP, Amazon Ads. "By receiving secure signals of authenticity directly from supported CTV devices like Fire TV, we can be confident that we're getting inventory from real devices. As adoption of this new capability increases across the industry, we'll be able to independently verify that we're buying genuine CTV inventory, ultimately creating more transparency and trust in CTV advertising."

"Device attestation represents a fundamental shift in how we combat device spoofing by creating a positive signal of device authenticity," said Geoff Stupay, senior vice president, global head of product at cybersecurity firm HUMAN. "We're extremely pleased to have collaborated with the OM SDK Commit Group to develop this capability, which will help buyers confidently identify quality CTV and mobile inventory and give sellers a way to differentiate their trusted supply paths."

The IAB Tech Lab said that Device Attestation in OM SDK release reflects collaboration across the Open Measurement Commit Group, which includes a range of technical stakeholders from across the industry. Participating companies include AdsWizz, Amazon Ads, DoubleVerify, Google, HUMAN and Integral Ad Science. This cross-industry participation ensures the framework is both technically rigorous and scalable across environments, IAB Tech Lab said.

To learn more about Device Attestation in OM SDK and how to implement it, visit https://iabtechlab.com/standards/open-measurement-sdk/.

NEW YORK—Charter's Spectrum Reach has announced that its clients have used Waymark’s AI-driven ad creation platform to create more than 15,000 ads since Spectrum Reach announced a deal with Waymark in early 2023.

"Our partnership with Waymark gives small businesses the opportunity to get in on TV advertising without the complexity that used to come with it,” said Michael Guth, senior vice president of marketing at Spectrum Reach. “Creating a polished commercial is quick, affordable and accessible – helping local businesses better stand out in their communities.”

One example of those campaigns involved Fun Spot America, a group of amusement parks based in Orlando, Florida. When it wanted to spotlight a season pass promotion, it quickly realized that a great deal alone wouldn't be enough to attract new roller coaster enthusiasts. To create something more visible and engaging, it teamed up with Spectrum Reach to create a unique and eye-catching ad through Spectrum’s partnership with Waymark, Spectrum reported.

Using video from Spectrum Reach's in-house creative agency, Kernel, and Waymark's newly developed premium offering, Waymark Cinematic, which Spectrum is currently testing in its markets, Fun Spot America created a high-quality, scalable video ad that leverages generative AI to accelerate production while delivering narrative storytelling, impressive visuals, dynamically mixed audio and even an AI-generated Florida alligator.

“As an early adopter of Waymark Cinematic, and a long-time Spectrum Reach client, I was very intrigued to learn how quickly they would be able to produce a high-quality broadcast video,” said John Arie Jr., CEO at Fun Spot America. “The final product, which used a blend of Waymark’s AI and creative footage from Kernel created by Spectrum Reach, exceeded our expectations; the quality felt like something that you’d see in a movie. Plus, we got to use cutting-edge technology to bring a Florida favorite, the alligator, to life, allowing us to further stand out from the competition.”

In another case study, Spectrum reported that Argus Technical Services, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based staffing agency specializing in the placement of administrative, skilled trades, manufacturing and engineering professionals, said that the high TV-quality look it could achieve with a Spectrum Reach-Waymark commercial was a difference maker.

"Advertising plays a pivotal role in attracting talent and reinforcing our industry credibility,” said Sean Sayrs, president at Argus Technical Services. “It's crucial that our ads not only reflect our professionalism but also foster a strong connection with our local community. Working with Spectrum Reach and Waymark allowed us to create those ads, in budget, ultimately connecting us with more candidates.”

“Spectrum Reach’s strong community ties and data, paired with our technology, are making TV ads a reality for small businesses,” added Alex Persky-Stern, CEO at Waymark. “Together, we’re giving local businesses the tools to tell their stories, reach the right audiences and drive growth in ways that used to be reserved for larger brands.”

More information about the Spectrum Reach and Waymark partnership is available at www.spectrumreach.com/waymark-partnership.

While recent news has been heavily focused on Hispanic migration into the U.S., “The 2025 Hispanic Market Report” from Claritas highlights the fact that this group is an increasingly important group for brands seeking to market their products and that Hispanic-owned businesses offer a huge market for media companies seeking to sell advertising.

With numbers “approaching 70 million in 2026”, accounting for more than 20% of the U.S. population, the report stressed that Hispanics are not only a large and growing part of the U.S. population. "Most of that growth" is organic, coming from births rather than net migration, the report found.

Overall Hispanics accounted for 68% of U.S. population growth since 2020 and are expected to account for 80% of the growth during the next five years, the report explained.

“This growth is essential for the U.S. economy as the non-Hispanic White population continues to decline – both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the total population,” the researchers wrote.

Such projections are particularly important for TV and CTV where more than 50 million Hispanics can be reached via CTV. Nearly 50% of Hispanic consumers streamed video via YouTube in the past 30 days, and households spend 3+ hours daily on social media, over-indexing on WhatsApp – more than twice the usage of non-Hispanics.

Data cited in the report also highlighted their growing economic clout and the growing importance of Hispanic businesses for media companies selling advertising.

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 7% of all employer firms in the nation are Hispanic-owned,” the report explained. “Collectively, these businesses generate over $500 billion in annual revenue and provide millions of jobs, underscoring the community’s vital role in sustaining and expanding the U.S. economy.

Overall, the report found that the "U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that the U.S. will be a majority multicultural nation by 2045. If you count as multicultural anyone other than the non-Hispanic White population, then the U.S. could become majority multicultural 10 years sooner than that. We project that the current (2026) non-Hispanic White population will decline from 55% of the total U.S. population to 52% in 2031."

The study also stressed that marketers need to develop a sophisticated understanding of Hispanics if they want to build their businesses. “With Hispanics accounting for so much of the U.S population growth, it is more critical than ever for brands to attract and retain Hispanic consumers and businesses as customers,” the researchers explained. “This will require a deep understanding of the Hispanic market, which is comprised of many segments. Whether it's broken down by language preference, country of origin, socio economic status. level of acculturation or some other measure, the Hispanic market should not be seen as a single, monolithic segment that gets the same treatment.”

The full report can be found here.

BELLEVUE, Wash.—Despite ongoing worries about the economy, new data from iSpot shows that national linear advertising revenue recorded a 4.2% increase in Q3 2025 versus a year earlier to $8.77 billion.

The data, which is based on an analysis of 1.7 trillion verified household TV ad impressions, also showed that total TV ad impressions dipped by 2.7% to 1.67 trillion YoY and that linear TV networks opted to include more total ad minutes, which rose by 2.4% year-over-year to 5.3 million. This follows an annual trend of increased ad time in Q3 and Q4 as more sports inventory becomes available.

The study also found that the NFL and college football both saw double-digit growth in Q3 TV ad impressions YoY, as the sport continues to take over weekend (and some weekday) viewing.

The findings also highlighted the importance of news. Nine of the top 20 programs by TV ad reach in Q3 were news-related (including morning shows).

Another notable finding is the fact that Spanish language programming continues to grow its reach YoY, from 4.4% of TV ad impressions in Q3 2024 to 4.7% in Q3 2025 (including a 10% jump from Univision alone).

The study also provided a detailed breakdown of networks by share of ad reach (HH):

STAINES-UPON-THAMES, U.K.—Synamedia today announced Chris Le May and Henry Rivero have joined its Iris ad-tech team.

Le May, who has 25 years of experience in TV and digital media, joins the company as director of advanced advertising. Rivero comes to Synamedia with a broadcaster’s perspective as the former vice president of advanced advertising and innovation at RTL Group. He takes on the role of business development lead for advanced advertising.

Before joining Synamedia, Le May held leadership roles at DataXu and the European Broadcaster Exchange (EBX), a broadcaster-led joint venture. He has worked closely with Sky, BBC, RTL and Channel 4, driving innovation in addressable TV, crossplatform monetization and advanced advertising strategies across Europe, Synamedia said.

In his previous role at RTL Group, Rivero managed technology and product road maps across broadcast, digital and social advertising. He also led the teams responsible for data and programmatic advertising. Rivero has advised several media companies, including Xandr, BBC Studios and Bertelsmann, helping them navigate advanced advertising and digital transformation, the company said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

LOS ANGELES—A coalition of media companies, streaming services and other firms have launched the Automotive Streaming Council (ASC). This new group said it aims to bring together executives from across the streaming media, technology, and data landscape to establish guidelines, uphold ethical standards, and promote greater transparency and performance in streaming advertising for the automotive industry.

As a self-regulatory body, the ASC said that it will operate as a collaborative forum focused on addressing key challenges facing automotive advertisers. These include fragmented measurement practices, unclear attribution models, inconsistent ad experiences, growing concerns about data usage, and increasing risks of ad fraud, the group said.

By aligning on shared principles and responsible innovation, the council aims to create a healthier and more accountable ecosystem for all stakeholders.

"Streaming is now essential for dealerships, but inconsistent standards and a lack of transparency create confusion in the marketplace," said Brian Singleton, founder and CEO of EMG, who is one of the founding members of the group. "The Automotive Streaming Council is a proactive step toward aligning the industry around principles that protect buyers, foster collaboration, and unlock streaming's full potential as a performance-driven channel."

More specifically, the ASC described its mission as follows:

• Establishing actionable standards for measurement, attribution, creative quality, and consumer privacy
• Providing education and research to help buyers and sellers navigate the evolving streaming landscape
• Encouraging collaboration across publishers, platforms, agencies, and dealerships to support innovation and consistency.

Founding members of the Automotive Streaming Council include:

• EMG, Brian Singleton, CEO & Founder
• Experian, Michael Kraut, VP of OEM Sales and Data Advertising Solutions
• NBCUniversal, Abbey Berryman, SVP, Client Partnerships & Automotive Category Lead
• Netflix, Chad Rumminger, Director of Automotive Advertising Sales & Partnerships
• Polk | S&P Global Mobility, Joe Kyriakoza, VP & General Manager, Polk Automotive Solutions
• Roku, Guy Schueller, Head of Industry, Automotive
• Spotify, Greg Myrick, Director of Client Partnerships, Automotive
• The Trade Desk, Matt Mendez, Senior Director, Client Development
• Tubi, Rick Fellen, VP National Sales / Automotive

More information is available here.

As broadcasters push to end ownership caps that they contend has hurt their competitive position, new data from Guideline provides some depressing details on just how much the local TV ad spend has declined as a percent of the overall advertising market.

That data shows that local TV accounted for only 6% of total media spending through June of 2025, which is less than half of the 13% share of media spending that local TV had in 2017.

In contrast, digital video has increased its market share from 15% in 2017 to 50% in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile network TV's share declined from 72% in 2017 to 44% in 2025, according to the Guideline data.

These shifts, the researchers note, reflect ongoing structural changes in the media buying landscape as broadcasters face increased competition from digital and social media. In response the industry has been pushing to end ownership caps and consolidate operations.

Some analysts have argued however that consolidation won't be a quick fix for the sectors ad revenue woes.

Guideline’s dataset, which is indicative of the buying trends of the largest advertisers in the US, also found that local TV spend at the product category level remains highly concentrated, with Automotive, Entertainment & Media, Financial Services and Technology accounting for 69% of the spending.

So far this year, that reliance on a few major categories has hurt broadcasters, with all four posting double-digit YoY declines. Automotive is down 15.7%, Entertainment & Media down 20.4%, Financial Services down 19.3% and Tech down 20.7% in terms of their local TV spending, according to Guideline.

By comparison, across the broader Guideline pool, these categories are performing very differently. Automotive is down just -0.8% YoY, Entertainment & Media only -2.9%, while Financial Services up +14.1% and Tech up +9.7% in terms of their total spending. This underscores that local TV is underperforming these categories’ overall media activity, the researchers noted.

Additional findings include:

• Certain subcategories are growing faster in local TV than digital Video, like Beer & Ale and Motion Pictures. Beer & Ale is up 124% in local TV compared to +6% in digital video. Motion Pictures are up 72% in local TV compared to +42% in digital video.
• When looking at the five largest station groups by footprint in local TV to understand how consolidation could reshape pricing power at the local level, Guideline data shows that prime time median average CPM indices reveal systematic pricing differences. Gray and Sinclair consistently index above market norms, while Tegna and Scripps remain discounted. These indices represent the station groups’ stations’ indexing relative to their local peers.
• In late news among women 25-54, stations from Nexstar, Sinclair and Gray consistently trade above the market median, signaling strong pricing power. By contrast, Tegna and Scripps remain below 100, suggesting they regularly under index relative to the market median, the researchers explained.

More information is available here.

CHANTILLY, Va.—BIA Advisory Services’ has revised its 2025 U.S. Local Advertising Forecast down to $169 billion this year, reflecting a 2.4% decline compared to the previous year. This updated forecast is a 1.5% decrease from the company’s earlier estimate of $171.4 billion.

Excluding political advertising, the updated forecast for the year is $168.2 billion, representing a 3.7% growth compared to last year. This amount is a decrease from the previous forecast of $171 billion, the researcher said.

Economic factors such as consumer sentiment, tariffs, high interest rates, and tight credit conditions are exerting increased pressure on local advertising budgets across all sectors, leading to these revised projections. The forecast considers an expected minimum tariff environment of 10%, its impact, and the necessary budget adjustments.

“Following a solid performance in 2024, driven by significant political advertising and spending from key sectors such as Legal Services, Healthcare and Quick Service Restaurants, we are now noticing a shift in the advertising landscape for 2025,” stated Senan Mele, VP of forecasting and data analysis. “Ad growth has slowed down slightly as businesses implement more cautious spending strategies and optimize their channel allocations. This change underscores the necessity for agility in responding to the rapidly evolving economic environment.”

Within the total local ad spend, BIA has raised its forecast for digital media spending by $855 million this year, highlighting its increasing influence in the advertising landscape. Digital media is expected to account for 53.7% of total advertising spending, which amounts to $90.4 billion. In contrast, traditional media spending is projected to make up 46.3% of total ad revenues, totaling $77.8 billion, reflecting a decrease of $3.5 billion from previous estimates. This shift is attributed to a growing focus on lower-funnel channels and the ongoing fragmentation of the media landscape.

When analyzing the forecast without political advertising, several media types are projected to experience growth. Connected TV (CTV)/Over-the-Top (OTT) is expected to increase by 29.3%. PC/Laptop follows closely, growing 12.1%, and mobile advertising is expected to rise by 9.4%. Additionally, TV digital advertising is estimated to grow by 3.7%, while both out-of-home (OOH) advertising and direct mail are projected to see a growth of 1.6%.

“The impressive growth of CTV and OTT services from 2024 to 2025 is largely attributed to ad-supported platforms now capturing 73.6% of TV viewing,” said BIA Managing Director Rick Ducey. “This transition from traditional broadcasting to streaming reinforces the business case for TV broadcasters to implement CTV/OTT strategies, enabling them to reclaim audiences and enhance their targetable ad inventory. However, despite increasing viewership and advertising spending, streaming providers face significant challenges in achieving profitability in a fragmented market."

BIA’s local advertising forecast also provides insights into ad spending by local verticals. Key takeaways include:

Top Three Fastest-Growing Categories Year-Over-Year:

• Real Estate (+10.4%)
• Restaurants and Food (+7.8%)
• Finance and Insurance (+4.0%)

Key Categories (Excluding Political) Declining Year-Over-Year:

• Media (-2.2%)
• Healthcare (-0.5%)
• General Services (-0.3%)

Mele remarked: “Despite the challenges faced by the media sector, there are promising opportunities this year, particularly with the holiday shopping season expected to kick off in early November. This extended time frame allows for a more strategic approach to targeted advertising. We’re excited to explore these trends further and provide our clients with insights that can help them capitalize on the growth in fast-growing categories while also navigating the declines.”

NEW YORK—As more live events move to streaming and streaming platforms work to boost their ad revenue, the digital advertising tech standards-setting body, IAB Tech Lab has released its Live Event Ad Playbook.

The proposed standards in the release were developed by IAB Tech Lab Working Groups in collaboration with Amazon, NBCUniversal, FreeWheel, and Index Exchange as part of their efforts to improve ad delivery for live streaming events. The proposed standards include the new Concurrent Streams API specification aimed at simplifying the monetization of live streaming events.

“Streaming is now the dominant form of television viewership in the U.S., and the rest of the world is rapidly following suit. Live events — whether sports, news, or cultural moments — are increasingly broadcast via streaming platforms,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “Delivering a seamless live stream at scale is already a technical challenge. Seamlessly inserting ads during those peak moments of concurrency is even harder. The Live Event Ad Playbook and our new Concurrent Streams API are purpose-built to help the industry meet this moment — ensuring advertisers can act on high-impact opportunities without sacrificing the viewer experience.”

In releasing the Live Event Ad Playbook, the IAB noted that streaming services are expected to spend more than $11 billion on sports rights alone this year. Marquee sporting events like Super Bowl LX and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games have driven mass viewership, demonstrating the power of live sports for advertisers looking to reach audiences at scale.

As more streaming services buy sports rights, IAB Tech Lab members felt there was a growing need for new standards and best practices. To address that issue, it formed the Live Event Ad Serving Working Group, which includes industry leaders Amazon, FreeWheel, Index Exchange, and NBCUniversal. The group is focused on leveraging its own learnings and best practices to create a more transparent supply chain for the live streaming ecosystem. The proposed standards aim to equip advertisers and streaming services with the tools needed to support live events with reliable and scalable ad delivery, the IAB Tech Lab explained.

To help the industry address live streaming challenges, the group has proposed the Concurrent Streams API, which provides real-time insights into how many viewers are watching a live stream. This allows publishers—either independently or through their SSAI partners—to send live viewership data to ad systems, enabling faster ad decisions and reducing the risk of missed ad breaks. For advertisers, this means better handling of traffic spikes and the ability to adjust campaigns in real time to capture high-value moments.

Several companies involved in the effort applauded the result.

“Between over a billion impressions during the 2024 NFL Playoff, and a 90% increase in advertiser participation in the 2024 Olympics, there's a very clear, booming demand for live sports,” said Mark McKee, general manager at FreeWheel, which is owned by Comcast. “By partnering with IAB Tech Lab, Amazon, NBCUniversal, and Index Exchange, we’re making it easier for advertisers to tap into these high-impact moments with scalable, seamless, and low-latency ad experiences.”

"Live streaming events represent a unique opportunity for advertisers. The premium nature of these environments requires thoughtful technical infrastructure that can adapt in real-time,” said Neal Richter, director, Amazon DSP. “By establishing common protocols and APIs, we're collectively moving toward a more reliable set of standards that benefits viewers, content creators, and brands.”

Another proposal on the horizon is an API that will provide projected viewership estimates for upcoming events over a rolling 2–3-week window, helping publishers prepare for traffic surges and enabling advertisers to fine-tune their budgets, deals, and delivery strategies, the Lab reported.

“NBCUniversal has been a leader in live streaming for several years, paving the way for advertisers to reap the benefits of tentpole live event programming across news, sports, and entertainment,” said Ryan McConville, executive vice president chief product officer, advertising platforms and operations, NBCUniversal. “With our extensive work in live event advertising, we have unique insight and expertise, and believe that the industry at large will benefit from the standards the IAB has put forward.

“The high degree of concurrency and unpredictability in live TV streams is both a challenge and a tremendous opportunity for the programmatic ecosystem,” said Catherine Cho, lead product manager, Index Exchange. “The goal of this effort is to tame the chaos with standards and make every streaming impression opportunity biddable and addressable by buyers.”

IAB Tech Lab said that all stakeholders including publishers, advertisers, developers, and technology partners can review the proposed guidelines at https://iabtechlab.com/standards/leap/