As television moves toward becoming a more outcomes-driven medium, it needs to first reckon with the industry's shaky measurement foundation. This debate anchored the closing conversation at OpenAP's Cannes Audience Summit, in which Next in Media's Mike Shields moderated a discussion with Warner Bros. Discovery's David Porter and CIMM's Jon Watts on why measurement discrepancies persist, and what it will take to build the trusted foundation the industry needs.

The need for a better measurement foundation is at the heart of Warner Bros. Discovery's report, The Unified Reach Paradox. The research, Porter explained, began with an ad-perception study of 158 agencies and advertisers layered with a deep-dive audit of five measurement vendors, found that a single campaign returns meaningfully different results depending on which provider measures it, with universe estimates alone varying by 25 million households. Watts argued the real issue is institutional: weak standards adoption, thin transparency, and contracts with little enforcement teeth.

"You miss 100% of the outcomes from the people you don't reach." - David Porter

Porter's line, borrowed from Wayne Gretzky, doubled as a rebuttal to any push to transform TV into a bottom-of-funnel performance channel. Brand awareness, he argued, is itself an outcome, the first step in a path that eventually leads to a sale. "CMOs are not just counting conversions, they're counting conversion rate," Porter added, pointing to the need for multi-KPI measurement within a single campaign rather than a single number.

While differentiation and competition must exist in a healthy measurement ecosystem, so too should standards. Watts and Porter agreed that there are areas of measurement ripe for standardization–universe estimates and impression definitions, for example, that still allow for proprietary tools like identity resolution and projection methodology to remain fair game for competition.

"Making it easier to buy television consistently across multiple platforms, devices, networks, and services is 100% the direction of travel." - Jon Watts

That extends beyond measurement into how television is bought altogether, Watts said, pointing to work of companies like OpenAP to simplify cross-platform buying for brands used to negotiating with six or seven media companies separately rather than executing one unified campaign. It's a sign, and high time, both panelists agreed, that the industry's appetite for standardization is finally starting to catch up with its complexity.