Gamera

CIMM Advocates Media-Quality Measurement for CTV

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) previewed a forthcoming paper arguing that media quality varies and should be measured independently of audience identifiers and short-term outcomes. Teased at CIMM East in New York and reviewed in pre-release by AdExchanger, the paper promotes a “Quality Trifecta” that separates media quality (attention and situational context), creative quality and audience quality. Authors Erez Levin and Gabriel Dorosz recommend shifting from binary/deterministic proxies (like presence of an ID or minimal viewability) to non-binary, probabilistic metrics such as attention scoring and contextual relevance. The guidance highlights CTV as a proving ground, urges buy-side leadership for adoption, and situates the work amid an expanding vendor landscape that includes startups and incumbents like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science.

Freestar Launches pubOS: Streamlining Publisher Operations in AI Era

Freestar announced pubOS, a unified Publisher Operating System that centralizes monetization, operations, and partner integrations for digital media companies. pubOS combines Freestar’s proprietary monetization stack — including a custom Prebid wrapper, an AI-driven yield engine, and unified reporting — with a marketplace of integrations (identity, compliance, AI tools, analytics) and a service model offering dedicated yield strategists, engineers, and demand specialists. Freestar positions pubOS as a replacement for fragmented point solutions to help publishers manage costs and complexity amid declining Google search referrals since 2024. The marketplace lists partners such as TollBit, Dappier, The Media Trust, Ad Fontes Media, Gamera, and Adomik to support AI-era monetization, content access controls, quality, and analytics.

Transparency Boosts Struggling Publishers Amid Ad Tech Challenges

Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell told AdExchanger Talks that greater transparency across programmatic ad tech is helping publishers navigate current monetization challenges. He said industry debate over universal transaction IDs (TIDs) clarified information asymmetries between buy- and sell-sides and prompted publisher-focused product moves from buyers such as The Trade Desk. Donnell pointed to a rise in media-quality measurement and analytics providers — including Jounce Media, DeepSee and Gamera — as tools that help publishers demonstrate content quality and attract demand into Freestar’s network. He praised initiatives like the MRC’s auction transparency certification and discussed publisher responses to generative-AI-driven search traffic declines, such as optimizing ad experiences and integrating answer-engine interactions. The interview included practical tips for publishers experiencing traffic drops.