Future of TV Briefing: The ambitious and alarming proposal fix to TV and streaming’s identity crisis

The Coalition of Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) is aiming to tackle TV and streaming’s identity crisis. Its proposal — Identity Infrastructure 2.0 — is admirable when viewed through the lens of TV and streaming ad buyers and sellers. But from the perspective of a TV and streaming viewer, it’s alarming.

Here’s the problem that Identity Infrastructure 2.0 seeks to address. TV and streaming’s identity picture is more like a mosaic. A patchwork of different identity signals that suggest the profile of a person so long as you don’t squint and see all the fuzziness.

Case in point: a majority of identity matches involving IP addresses — CTV’s primary identity mechanism — are wrong.

CIMM isn’t seeking to create a single identifier to rule them all, though.

“The path forward is unlikely to be defined by a single dominant provider or a universal ID spine,” according to page 55 of a document that lays out a system in which neither a single dominant provider nor a universal ID spine would be necessary because being able to identify people across companies and across platforms becomes, alarmingly, the default (with consent of course, but we’ll get to that).

Instead, Identity Infrastructure 2.0 aims to filter and fortify existing identity mechanisms into a form of federated identity.

Identity Infrastructure 2.0 calls for taking a whole bunch of different identifiers and connecting, comparing and weighing them, to varying extents. And all with some combination of authenticated subscriber data, internet provider-provided user data, device IDs, transaction data, etc. at the foundation of what CIMM describes as “deterministic household identity.”

“Household identity should be understood not as a single standardized identifier or centrally owned asset, but as a functional reference construct that can be implemented through multiple interoperable methodologies,” according to the paper.

Underpinning this identity would be people’s postal addresses, shared by pay-TV providers and internet service providers, that then become the vertebrae of a new type of identity backbone to which other forms of identity — streaming subscriber data, device IDs, transaction data — can be connected.

“The fixture is the postal address,” said Jon Watts, managing director of CIMM, in an interview.

My mailing address is certainly more stable than my IP address. Which, as a person in the world, is the concerning part. Especially after reading the paper’s discussion of Digital Envoy’s LocID on page 42. 

IP addresses can be refreshed on a regular basis, breaking any connected identity signals. So LocID uses device IDs and “a stabilized household spine” to maintain persistent identity despite IP address changes. In the words of the paper, LocID enables “audience segments to be recovered and revalidated instead of discarded.” In my words, it enables companies to re-identify me. Actually, in my words to Watts, “this feels like fingerprinting.”

“Kind of,” Watts said. 

And this is why I find Identity Infrastructure 2.0 alarming. I understand the issues it’s looking to address. I understand that better targeted ads that can be more accurately measured can lead to more money being spent on TV and streaming services that could lead to better shows and movies on those services. But at what cost to me?

(I’ll say here: Identity Infrastructure 2.0 goes to great lengths to emphasize the importance of consent and privacy by design (its subhead includes the words “Privacy‑First Architecture”). And conceivably, a federated identity ecosystem should make it easier for me to manage consent and have that consent populated across the supply chain. But I’ll put more faith in the industry’s consent management practices whenever the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Association of National Advertisers update their privacy policies to acknowledge support for Global Privacy Control.)

If Identity Infrastructure 2.0 succeeds – and that’s a huge if, requiring companies and industry organizations to come together and establish standards, rules and practices to make proprietary data sets interoperable and accessible – but if Identity Infrastructure 2.0 succeeds, it’s impossible to imagine its impact and application being limited to making mid-roll ads more personalized and performant.

What’s most striking about CIMM’s Identity Infrastructure 2.0 is not how ambitious it is, though it is that. But no. What’s most striking is how understated it is in scope when considering what its success would actually achieve. 

The paper focuses on creating a coherent identity picture to make TV and streaming ad targeting and measurement more cohesive and consistent. But what it would actually create – to a greater degree than the present – is a world in which people can become so easily identified across companies and across platforms that anonymity becomes a question of consent. Not of people’s consent, but of companies consenting to respect people’s consent.

I said as much to Watts. He said, “I think it would not be unfair to say this is an area of some uncertainty in the marketplace.” 

What we’ve heard

“Advertisers with strict flighting, or key industry windows, need to be ready to move early to ensure they secure desired inventory.”

— Horizon Media’s Teddy Montalvo on this year’s upfront market

Numbers to know

100 million: Number of active households using Roku’s connected TV platform.

$10 million: Price that Disney is asking advertisers to pay for a 30-second spot in next year’s Super Bowl.

$3 billion: Netflix’s projected ad revenue for 2026.

16%: Percentage of employees that Snap is laying off.

$78.0 billion: How much money advertisers spent on digital video in 2025.

$40 million: How much Viant is paying to acquire TVision.

What we’ve covered

As upfront negotiations near, buyers chart path through complex sports market:

• The annual television upfronts season will confront media buyers and brands with a sports media market of unprecedented complexity.
• The increasing number of media companies touting sports inventory has served to put a lid on CPMs (cost-per-thousand), according to three buyers who spoke to Digiday.

Read more about the upfronts here.

How Carson Roney grew from TikTok to Gatorade commercials:

• The former college basketball and volleyball player has 5 million followers on TikTok, nearly 700,000 followers on Instagram, and deals with brands including the NBA, Gatorade and Abercrombie.
• Roney increased her earnings by more than 275% from 2024 to 2025, with an engagement rate of more than 10% on her social media accounts.

Read more about creator athletes here.

What we’re reading

The agentic upfront:

Expect “agentic” to rival “flexibility” and “live sports” among the big buzzwords in this year’s upfront market, according to Ad Age.

YouTube’s new NFL package:

YouTube is on the verge of securing a five-game package from the league, according to Front Office Sports.

Paramount’s upfront pitch priorities:

The company is merging its Paramount+ and Pluto TV ad tech stacks, launching a new conversion measurement tool and expanding dynamic ad insertion to more live sports streams, according to AdExchanger.