Future of TV Briefing: FreeWheel adds show-level reporting to tackle streaming’s transparency problem

For the better part of the past decade (at least), many streaming ad buyers have complained about not knowing what shows their ads appear in when purchasing programmatically. Well, those complaints should start to quiet down.

Comcast-owned ad tech firm FreeWheel is rolling out show-level reporting for advertisers using its ad buying platform Buyer Cloud (formerly Beeswax). The show-level reporting will be available free of charge roughly two hours after ad impressions are delivered, but the Video Content Report will be limited to the publishers that opt in to make the disclosures. A+E Global Media, Fuse, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Spectrum Reach, Warner Bros. Discovery and Xumo have signed on so far.

Show-level reporting means that advertisers will be able to see the names of the shows that their ads ran during. That may sound pat in a streaming ad market that has advanced targeting and measurement options that can break down audiences based on factors like household income and shopping habits. But as the aphorism goes, content is king.

“Contextual in streaming is much superior,” said Mike Treon, head of CTV and video strategy at PMG.

While FreeWheel’s show-level reporting will be limited to the publishers that opt to enable it, its availability will likely have an impact on the money going not only to those publishers but to others.

“I could download this report, have it go pull the titles and make a beautiful-looking report, but it’s going to be based in FreeWheel. That is now a product that Netflix or anybody has to compete with,” Treon said. “So it’s not just limited to what platforms like FreeWheel will do. You’ve got to think of the downstream implication and the derivative nature of products and how that influences investment. The ability to turn data into intelligence is what drives investment for us.”

The level of granularity provided via FreeWheel’s show-level reporting will be up to the publishers, said Jon Mansell, vp and U.S. head of demand at FreeWheel. In addition to the list of shows a campaign ran against, publishers can choose to provide metrics including impression counts, date and time, device type and spend amounts. Episode-level reporting and network-level reporting is not currently available, according to a FreeWheel spokesperson.

A+E Global Media will be providing impression counts alongside show-level reporting, said Joseph Lerner, vp of programmatic at A+E Global Media. As a result, an advertiser will be able to see, for example, that X number of impressions ran during “The First 48 Hours” and Y number ran during “Duck Dynasty.”

A+E Global Media had already been providing show-level reporting for advertisers purchasing its inventory directly. Meanwhile, Amazon Prime Video reportedly began offering show-level reporting last year. And companies like InterMedia Advertising have been working to figure out how to finagle show-level reporting.

Show-level reporting has been table stakes in traditional TV for, well, ever. Fixed programming schedules makes it easy for TV advertisers to see when an ad ran and cross-reference that with a TV network’s programming guide. Streaming’s on-demand nature, however, means that information would need to be explicitly disclosed, which can raise a number of concerns. 

“One of them is anxiety around channel conflict,” said Mansell. If an advertiser sees the list of shows it ran in, it may overlook the campaign’s performance, zero in on the fact that most of the shows it ran in were not popular programs and lobby for a lower CPM or cherry-pick the most popular programs going forward, either way cutting into the publisher’s revenue. 

“However I think that is only part of it,” Mansell added. 

Show-level reporting has been a bit of a third rail when it comes to programmatic advertising, in particular. And there’s one big reason for that. The Video Privacy Protection Act bars companies from disclosing the titles of films, TV shows and videos that someone watched in connection with the person’s identity. That’s why companies have been reticent to share show-level data in the programmatic bid stream where it could be connected with forms of person-level information and become a VPPA violation. For its part, FreeWheel is not providing the show-level reporting in the bid stream. It’s simply providing it as part of post-delivery reports. 

“There’s been this conflation of [people thinking ad buyers] want show title to be in the bid stream versus we want to validate where we ran,” Treon said.

The show-level transparency problem is not – poof – solved, though. 

For starters, ad buyers and sellers will need to get on the same page when it comes to how show titles are formatted. If A+E Global Media were to report a show title like “The First 48 Hours” as is but an advertiser’s system is set up to format it as “First 48 Hours, The,” then that’s a problem. Whether this is a task for AI, show-title normalization will need to happen so that show-level reporting doesn’t get lost in translation.

Beyond that, though, advertisers will need to figure out how to take advantage of knowing the shows in which they ran. That doesn’t just mean earmarking show titles when placing buys. It can also mean tagging ads in light of the shows in which they will be served. 

“The tags that come from the client that go into the platform, if they are just programmatic tags and not broken out by the specific publishers or campaigns that are being set up, then you can’t track performance at that granular level because performance is generally tied back to the tag that was issued,” said Mansell. 

Without that show-aware tagging, show-level impact becomes harder to gauge, which can make it harder for advertisers to appraise the value of running in certain shows and thereby reduce the value for publishers to provide that show-level transparency. 

As Mansell, a former agency executive at Magna, said, “Are agencies thinking about correlating the performance to the transparency so [they] can reward the publisher for what’s happening? Or is just transparency for transparency’s sake?”

What we’ve heard

“If these agents aren’t speaking the same language, that could cost consequential amounts of money if those errors are made.”

— IAB’s Jamie Finstein discussing the Redefining Media Types Standard on the latest Digiday Podcast episode

Numbers to know

$20: Weekly subscription price for a micro-drama app that TikTok is testing in the U.S.

2 million: Number of paid subscribers the NBCUniversal’s Peacock added in the second quarter of 2026..

13%: Percentage increase, year over year, in YouTube’s ad revenue in Q2 2026.

-29%: Percentage decline, year over year, in U.S. ad revenue for TelevisaUnivision in Q2 2026.

-12%: Percentage decline, year over year, in on-location shoots in the Los Angeles area in Q2 2026

What we’ve covered

Kai Cenat’s Streamer U was a ‘masterclass’ for brands looking to tap content creators:

• Last week, streamer Kai Cenat hosted the second-annual Streamer University, a five-day creator bootcamp at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas that was streamed live on Twitch and YouTube.
• At least 16 brands partnered with Streamer University this year

Read more about Streamer University here.

TikTok’s Kat Marquez unpacks NBA and WNBA creator deal:

• The platform and sports league struck a deal to boost official NBA and WNBA content to sports fans on the app and promote live coverage of the league’s games on ABC and ESPN to users in real time.
• TikTok is also sending several TikTok creators to NBA and WNBA games.

Read more about TikTok’s sports strategy here.

The upfront market is nearly done, as sports acts as both negotiation driver and obstacle:

• According to five investment execs Digiday spoke with, somewhere between 75-80% of upfront spending has been committed to the major sellers in the market.
• Overall, according to the buyers, total upfront dollar commitments were slightly down.

Read more about the upfront market here.

Albertsons’ new ‘micro sitcom’ is a big deal for retail media:

• The grocery retailer produced a “micro drama” series of 22 episodes under three minutes each.
• The series was built for retail media audiences watching from screens in stores, on the Albertsons e-commerce platform or on social media.

Read more about Albertsons’ micro-drama series here.

Mastercard is tapping foodie creators to drive awareness and adoption:

• Mastercard recently rolled out an episodic social series focused on foodie creators visiting restaurants to help create buzz and grow their small business.
• There’s plans to continue the series with different kinds of small businesses, led by the creators who highlight them in their content.

Read more about Mastercard’s creator marketing here.

What we’re reading

Paramount’s WBD deal delay:

Paramount has agreed to postpone its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery until a court rules on states’ antitrust lawsuit against the deal or June 2027, whichever comes first, according to The New York Times.

YouTube+Peacock:

YouTube will sell a bundled subscription to NBCUniversal’s Peacock as part of YouTube Premium through an expansive deal between the two companies, according to CNBC.

Paramount+’s free tier:

Paramount plans to add a free tier to its flagship streaming service starting in the third quarter of 2026 with its mobile app, according to Business Insider.

Facebook’s video-first feed:

In a test starting outside the U.S., the social platform will show a full-screen video feed instead of the traditional feed, and it may bring the experience to the U.S. next year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bezos’s AI redesign of Prime Video:

Amazon’s executive chairman wants the e-commerce company’s streaming service to be rebuilt around AI, with improved content recommendations and voice search, according to Reuters.