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.

NEW YORK & EDINBURGH, Scotland—A recent survey of media buyers in the U.S., the UK, German and Australia found that buyers are taking a more converged view of television in their campaigns and planning, with more than 75% of respondents agreeing that TV is now defined as linear and streaming platforms, and more than 70% believing that all forms of TV should be sold on impressions, according to a TVSquared report.

That marks a major global shift in thinking from the past when digital was sold the basis of impressions while TV used ratings. It also highlights a move towards using impressions that has been embraced by major TV and measurement companies in recent months. 

“The State of Converged TV: A Look at Global Trends & Adoption” report surveyed nearly 1,000 buyers in the U.S., UK, Germany and Australia and analyzed billions of ad impressions across 20 converged TV campaigns active on TVSquared’s ADvantage platform. 

Across all four markets, the findings from the study indicate that buyers are approaching linear and streaming in similar ways, and that the current and future states of converged TV are putting a spotlight on the need for new currencies and holistic, cross-platform measurement, the report said. 

TVSquared’s converged TV campaign analysis revealed that, on average, the audience overlap of linear and OTT/CTV campaigns is approximately 30%, meaning that, on average, 70% of the audiences reached via streaming could not be reached with linear alone. Findings also indicate that brands should be committing at least 10% of TV impressions to streaming in order to achieve at least 15% incremental reach.

Data from the U.S. survey also highlighted the need to move past legacy models and toward a more holistic, transparent converged TV marketplace, the researchers said. 

They found that 89% of buyers cited the ability to holistically manage linear and streaming campaigns as an important factor when deciding to invest in converged TV.

More than 90% said transparency of metrics across linear and streaming channels and publishers was critical in order to devote ad spend to converged TV.

While 86% cited the need to achieve cross-platform TV measurement and attribution as a top priority; 57% stated that “accuracy of cross-platform TV measurement and attribution” was also a top challenge, the researchers said. 

Very large majorities (94%) also indicated that the ability to measure incremental reach of streaming beyond linear was a critical factor for investing in converged TV.

Additional U.S. survey findings also indicated that advertisers are trying to break through silos that have long existed between digital and traditional TV advertising. Among buyers leveraging converged TV strategies today, TVSquared found that linear and streaming are being treated in a more similar way than previously believed.

A third of buy-side respondents ranked attribution and outcomes (for online and offline activities) as a top key performance indicator (KPI) for converged TV, marking a big difference for linear, which has traditionally been used for reach. 

Half of the respondents said reach and frequency were equally as important for digital TV buys as linear, and incremental audience reach was ranked as one of the most important metrics by 43%, the report said. 

More than 40% of buyers are managing both linear and streaming channels for performance/outcomes weekly, and between 10-15% are doing it on a daily cadence.

Even for linear, 33% of marketers are optimizing campaigns for performance and 32% are optimizing creatives on a weekly cadence, which closely matches streaming at 35% and 31%, respectively.

“The TV ecosystem is now rooted in cross-platform, and we must deliver a transactable currency that allows us to count and ascribe value in a similar way – across linear and streaming – to ensure TV budgets continue to grow,” said Jo Kinsella, president, TVSquared. “Reliable, transparent measurement across campaigns will ensure that marketers’ total TV investments and impression allocations are effective at achieving audience reach and outcomes across TV everywhere.”

A copy of “The State of Converged TV: A Look at Global Trends & Adoption,” is available here.

NEW YORK — There appears to be a bit of carrot-and-stick motivation driving important changes in television advertising at the moment. 

First the carrot: TV broadcasters are on the cusp of being able to offer brands and their agencies the opportunity to deliver targeted, personalized ads thanks to NextGen TV. As stations increasingly adopt ATSC 3.0, this is only likely to grow.

Now the stick: Digital advertising is a monster. In May 2021, Statista forecasted a 100 percent increase in ad spending on digital when comparing 2019 to its projected 2024 total—from $132.5 billion to $278.5 billion. 

The “currency” of buyers and sellers in that market is based on impressions, not ratings. So it’s no surprise major broadcast groups, including ABC Owned Television Stations, NBC Universal, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television and others, are shifting from traditional ratings to selling ads based on audience impressions.

I recently spoke with Dave Otten, CEO and founder of web video player software developer JW Player, about these developments and what they may mean for broadcasters. Otten traces his professional life to the digital world where impression-based advertising got its start. Now as CEO of JW Player, Otten is seeking growth in the Connected-TV/OTT world. His insights offer a fresh perspective to broadcasters.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTech: Television broadcasters will be moving one day to a direct measurement model for audience measurement as NextGen TV proliferates and Connected TV viewers have a back channel via the internet to reveal what they are watching. How do you see this playing out in the short term and long term for TV broadcasters?

Dave Otten: Things are going in that direction, which is fantastic for the industry. But there will be hurdles. I think the biggest thing will just be educating the world—the broader ecosystem. Advertisers for so many years have bought off things like Nielsen numbers in the linear world.

Now in the connected world, they’ll be able to have direct measurement. I just think there’s a tremendous amount of education that needs to happen. From an advertiser's perspective, I think it'll be pretty straightforward understanding how to buy and [finding] the audiences they're searching for in those environments.

I also think there’ll be companies that pop out that we’re not even thinking of today that will be built around direct measurement to help give more insights to content creators, to broadcasters and to all the folks creating video for the digital environment.

TVT: OK, but what about having the impartial third party that brands and agencies can rely upon for audience numbers. In other words, will they be satisfied to take the word of broadcasters about the audience numbers the broadcasters themselves are measuring?

DO: That’s the education part, right? Education in the sense of learning to trust. I think that might be another way of describing the education piece. Whether Nielsen can somehow continue to maintain their foothold [is the question]. Given their brand, which is a real thing for the last many decades, they’re best positioned to be a leader here as they’ve done in the past.

But overall it [buying based on direct measurement] is a step in the right direction for the broader industry. Innovation will happen, and I think there will be a lot more flexibility for buyers and advertisers. They’ll be able to be more thoughtful in their purchases, so I think that’s going to be a net benefit. But it will take time.

TVT: On a parallel track, many major broadcast groups and networks have announced they will be transitioning to an impression-based advertising model. I think this raises a lot of questions for broadcasters, but let’s start off at a high level. What’s your impression about the transition to buying and selling advertising based on impressions?

DO: I come from the digital world where impression-based advertising made its start. The digital influence [on this move by broadcasters to impressions as an ad currency] is definitely there. It makes sense given that most of the dollars are going to digital. That’s how people are buying.

TVT: Are all impressions equal?

DO: No. All impressions are not equal, and that’s the downside. In the early days of internet advertising, [there were concerns over] whether people were actually viewing a piece of content. How long is someone engaging with the actual video content? That matters. What’s the ad completion rate? How much content are people watching? Are they truly engaged?

That’s a really big thing now for broadcasters as they transition to impression-based buying increasingly as is done in OTT or Connected TV (CTV) environments.

You see things like viewability and similar factors being less of an issue in the connected world or in the OTT world than you do in the web world. So, there won’t be as many of those challenges, but nonetheless, there are aspects of that that are going to be different that broadcasters will have to get their arms around as part of impression-based buying. But all views are not created equal, for sure.

The other big part to it is that first-party data is going to matter a lot—to the extent that as part of any direct measurement you cannot simply measure whether the video is being watched but also who the user is on a permission-based basis. That’s going to be enormously valuable.

TVT: With your roots in the digital world, I was wondering about your perspective on the opportunity broadcasters increasingly will have to deliver personalized and targeted advertising as they rollout NextGen TV?

DO: I think it’s a fantastic thing. As JW Player—our background as sort of the backend technology that powers a lot of video delivery to mobile, web and increasingly connected TV environment—I think that’s a fantastic thing.

I think that part of it is really exciting for broadcaster to have that kind of detail that they can be very much more precise in how and when they want to reach people, whereas before you’d simply have a sense of what the content is. It’s a sporting event—a football game or soccer. 

I don’t recall ever having to swim upstream, but in my younger days I was on my fair share of canoe floats and witnessed firsthand just how powerful the current of a river can be.

So. I understand why TV broadcasters do not want to swim upstream against the current in the world of advertising.

Significant growth in digital ad spending last year despite a pullback elsewhere may be reason enough for broadcasters to devote more effort to digital. An eMarketer Insider Intelligence report notes that despite “sharp declines in 2020” in television ad spending, “U.S. advertisers increased their spending on digital ads last year by almost 15%...”

ABC-owned TV stations, NBCUniversal, Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Hearst Television are among the major station groups that have or said they are in the process of adopting an impressions-based ad sales model—the very bread and butter of digital advertising. In June, Katz Television Group, which represents more than 800 TV stations in 210 DMAs, announced its support for industry-wide adoption of impression-based selling and buying for local broadcast TV.

Layer on the growing adoption of NextGen TV with ATSC 3.0’s support for personalized and targeted advertising, and it’s clear big changes are needed in how ads are sold, booked, scheduled, managed and played out. It’s also evident those changes will revolve around technology and workflow on the one hand and people on the other.

Technology and workflow: Broadcasters embracing this transition will soon find there is little room for disparate, siloed ad workflows. Nor will maintaining separate ad-tech systems—one for linear television and the other for digital—remain feasible.

Failing to unify digital and linear workflows will result in costly operational inefficiencies, redundant processes and, in the end, intolerable inflexibility.

Personnel: For local TV broadcasters and station groups to take full advantage of their platform portfolio—TV stations, zoned TV coverage for certain 3.0 stations, radio and digital—their sales people must be equipped to succeed.

That will likely require significant retaining of the station’s salesforce. Just as on the tech and workflow side where there this no more room for silos, broadcasters will find siloing sales—with some salespeople dedicated to the linear product and others to digital, or, worse yet, farmed out to a third-party sales organization—will be inefficient and create lost sales.

The television industry has a long history of change. Black-and-white made room for color, which gave way to digital and HDTV. Now, 4K with HDR is here. Film and its associated workflows gave way to videotape and ultimately digital media. NTSC gave way to DTV, which will likely be replaced by ATSC 3.0. 

Now the tectonic change is focused on the cash register. If broadcasters follow past form, here too they ultimately will succeed in making this fundamental transition because to do otherwise amounts to swimming upstream against a current that grows stronger with each passing mile. 

NEW YORK—In an important example of how broadcasters are moving towards impressions-based currency so that digital and TV usage are measured in the same way, Katz Television Group has come out in favor of using impressions. 

The television advertising sales organization represents more than 800 TV stations across a majority of the 210 DMAs. 

TV has long used ratings as its currency for ad sales while digital uses impressions. Using impression-based currency reflects the importance of digital for broadcasters and would make it easier to craft cross platform buys. 

Recently the ABC Owned Stations also backed the idea. 

“Our local media clients distribute content and offer advertising on many platforms, including local linear TV, OTT, digital subchannels and websites,” said Leo MacCourtney, president of Katz Television Group in a statement. “To effectively plan, buy and evaluate local campaigns, national buyers need a common currency for local cross-platform execution. In the current local media environment, many stations’ linear programming is still transacted on ratings, while their digital platforms are simultaneously transacted on impressions. Now is the time to transition to a universal language of impressions. Katz Television Group supports the industry adoption of impressions for linear TV to enable cross-platform campaign integration at the local level.”

NEW YORK—In a notable example of how local TV stations are changing the way they sell local ads, the ABC Owned TV Stations have announced that they will use impressions-based selling and buying for local TV.

The shift to using impressions, which has long been the currency for digital sales, is an important shift away from using ratings as the basis for TV ad sales. 

The move means that digital and TV can be sold on the same footing, making it easier to craft cross-platform buys. 

In a statement on the adoption of impression-based selling and buying for local TV stations, Debra OConnell, president of networks at Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution at The Walt Disney Company noted: “Today, the ABC Owned Television Stations provide best in class content that serves our communities on a variety of video platforms, including linear, digital and OTT. Marketers with local strategies want to build multiplatform campaigns and need a common currency to do so effectively. Using an impressions-based currency to evaluate, sell and buy local broadcast video enables us to offer our advertisers full visibility into local audiences and extends the overall reach of their messaging across platforms. The ABC Owned Television Stations fully support the adoption of impressions as the currency for local broadcast TV.”

IRVING, Texas—The cost for advertising during popular TV shows on Nexstar stations will no longer be based on traditional TV ratings, but rather will be determined on a cost-per-impression model, Nexstar Media Group announced.

Having developed a new method with Comscore that provides audience measurement metrics across Nexstar’s broadcast, digital, mobile and streaming video platforms, advertisers will be able to use these impressions to garner more qualitative data about the audience, more accurately reflect the total number of people watching and are more comparable to metrics used by non-broadcast platforms.

Among the viewer details that this new system is able to reveal, per Nexstar, are household incomes, shopping preferences and brand loyalties. Advertisers can utilize this data to target their spending for maximum impact, including reaching customers as they prepare to make a purchase, Nexstar says.

“This transition is an important step in modernizing the way buyers and sellers conduct business to better reflect the trends in video-consumption and to ensure that all viewing audiences are being accurately counted,” said Steve Walsh, executive vice president of local services at Comscore.

“Our sales force will be able to talk to all advertisers—big or small, national or local—in an informed, fact-based manner about maximizing the reach and effectiveness of their spending across every available media channel and every viewer will be counted, no matter where or when they watch,” said Tim Busch, president of Nexstar Broadcasting. “In addition, advertisers will be able to universally target their customers regardless of the distribution platform and monitor the results through unduplicated audience measurement.”