Nine national television distributors join forces with OpenAP to standardize industry fragmentation governance
Nine national television distributors (including Paramount, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. Discovery) have partnered with OpenAP to launch an industry initiative aimed at connecting first-party data outcomes with advertising campaign exposure data in a standardized way to address fragmentation in cross-distributor outcome analysis. The pilot phase will collaborate with specific advertisers, agencies, and attribution service providers, with results to be shared over the next year. OpenAP will also introduce a unified conversion API and new advertising campaign workflows, with future phases supporting agency-style workflow interactions.
At a Glance
- Nine national TV distributors, including Paramount, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. Discovery, have partnered with ad company OpenAP to introduce a standardized way to connect first-party outcome data with campaign exposure data (per press release）。
- The industry initiative will first launch a pilot phase with select advertisers, agencies, and attribution providers, focusing on demonstrating the need for a unified approach to outcomes, with results to be shared over the next year.
- OpenAP will also launch two capabilities under this effort, including a unified conversions API and new campaign workflows designed to improve performance. Future phases will introduce support for agentic workflow interactions.
Deep Dive
During last week's upfront presentations,severalindustry giantstouted new ad tools and measurement capabilities for their linear TV and streaming portfolios. Despite the latest innovations, key gaps remain on fragmentation, making it difficult to analyze outcome data across distributors.
OpenAP is attempting to fill that gap with its new industry initiative, which brings together national TV distributors A+E Global Media, AMC Networks, Fox, Hallmark Media, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Scripps Networks, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
“Premium video needs its own intelligence layer to better compete with walled gardens,” OpenAP CEO David Levy said in the press release. “By simplifying how outcomes are measured and activated across distributors, we can help advertisers see performance more easily, enable agencies to scale their audience strategies, and give distributors a stronger framework to grow investment without adding operational friction.”
The initiative aims to simplify how advertisers plan, activate, and measure outcomes across linear and streaming TV campaigns, and introduces a standardized way to connect outcome data with campaign exposure data. The multi-phase strategy will begin with a pilot phase focused on demonstrating the benefits of a unified approach across distributors, with initial results to be shared at key industry moments over the next year.
As part of the effort, OpenAP will launch a cross-publisher conversions API for TV advertising, allowing advertisers to connect first-party conversion and outcome data with exposure data from participating distributors through a single integration point. The ad company will leverage its shared identity framework to support consistent data transformation.
Additionally, OpenAP will introduce new workflows for cross-publisher and cross-platform campaigns. In future phases of the initiative, the company will introduce support for agentic workflow interactions and allow buyer tools and agencies to use unified attribution signals from its conversions API to further optimize investment.
The effort to address fragmentation comes asnearly 70% of connected TV advertisersplan to increase spending this year, with an average increase of 17%, according to Advertiser Perceptions and Premion.