Nine TV Publishers Unite Behind OpenAP to Build the First Cross-Publisher Conversion API for Television

Nine of the largest television publishers in the United States announced a partnership with OpenAP on May 13 to establish a standardized, cross-publisher conversion API for television advertising. A+E Global Media, AMC Global Media, Fox, Hallmark Media, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Scripps Networks, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery will participate in the initiative, which aims to let advertisers connect first-party conversion and outcome data to campaign exposure data across all nine publishers through a single integration point.

The announcement landed squarely in the middle of upfronts week, where every major publisher pitched performance and outcomes as the central value proposition of their inventory. But unlike individual measurement dashboards or single-publisher CAPIs, the OpenAP initiative is attempting something the TV industry has never done at this scale: a shared measurement infrastructure that works across competing media companies.

What the Cross-Publisher CAPI Actually Does

Conversion APIs have become the standard plumbing for connecting ad exposure to business outcomes in digital advertising. Meta, Google, and Snap all operate CAPIs that let advertisers send server-side conversion events back to the platform that served the ad. In CTV, Netflix and Roku have launched their own single-publisher CAPIs. The problem is that each integration is bespoke — an advertiser running video campaigns across six TV publishers needs six separate data pipelines, six identity resolution setups, and six different ways of matching conversions to impressions.

The OpenAP CAPI eliminates that fragmentation by creating a single integration point. Advertisers connect their first-party conversion data — whether that is website purchases, app installs, store visits, or lead submissions — to OpenAP once, and OpenAP handles the data translation and identity resolution across all participating publishers using its shared identity framework, Open Identity. The result is a consistent set of conversion signals matched to ad exposure data across linear and streaming inventory from nine different media companies.

As OpenAP CEO David Levy told Variety, "Premium video needs its own intelligent operating layer to better compete with walled gardens." The initiative is designed to reduce the number of integrations advertisers need and create more consistent identity resolution and protocols for matching outcome data to ad exposure — the kind of standardized infrastructure that digital platforms have had for years but television has lacked.

Why This Matters More Than Individual Publisher Tools

The 2026 upfronts were saturated with measurement announcements. NBCUniversal showcased its Performance Insights Hub, a unified dashboard integrating data from partners including EDO, InMarket, iSpot, Kantar, LiveRamp, and VideoAmp. Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled a real-time measurement dashboard designed to let buyers optimize campaigns mid-flight rather than waiting for post-campaign reports. Fox touted outcomes-based reporting from roughly 20 data partners. Amazon launched Dynamic TV Creative, which personalizes interactive ads based on shopping signals and ties campaigns to commerce outcomes like product page views and cart actions.

Each of those tools is valuable on its own. But they all operate within a single publisher's ecosystem. An advertiser buying across NBCUniversal, Fox, and Paramount still cannot compare outcomes using the same methodology, the same identity graph, or the same conversion definitions. That inconsistency is the core barrier to scaling outcomes-based buying in television.

The OpenAP CAPI attacks that problem directly. By standardizing how conversion data flows into the TV ecosystem, it creates the conditions for apples-to-apples outcome comparisons across publishers — something buyers have been demanding and sellers have been unable to deliver individually.

The Competitive Context: TV Versus the Walled Gardens

The timing of this initiative is not a coincidence. Television publishers are losing share to digital platforms that have offered closed-loop measurement for over a decade. Google, Meta, and Amazon can connect ad exposure to purchase, signup, or visit with minimal friction because they control both the ad serving and the identity resolution. TV publishers, fragmented across dozens of companies with different tech stacks and data assets, have never been able to offer that level of measurement simplicity.

As AdExchanger's CTV Roundup noted, CAPIs have emerged as the next phase of performance TV. But single-publisher CAPIs only solve part of the problem. An advertiser that can prove Netflix drove incremental conversions still cannot compare that result against their Paramount or Fox investment using the same framework. The OpenAP approach treats the nine participating publishers as a collective ecosystem rather than nine separate walled gardens — a structural advantage over the one-publisher-at-a-time approach.

The initiative also positions TV to compete on measurement terms that digital buyers understand. Brand marketers may accept reach and frequency as primary metrics, but performance marketers — who control an increasing share of budgets — want conversion data, ROAS, and incrementality signals. A standardized CAPI gives TV publishers a credible path to performance accountability that does not require each company to build and maintain its own measurement infrastructure from scratch.

Implementation Timeline and What Comes Next

OpenAP and the participating publishers are taking a phased approach. The first phase is a collaborative pilot with select advertisers, agencies, and attribution providers, with initial results expected to be shared at key industry moments over the next year. Early work will focus on demonstrating the benefits of a unified approach to measuring business outcomes — everything from car showroom visits to coupon redemptions to e-commerce conversions.

Future phases will introduce support for agentic workflow interaction, allowing buy-side tools and AI agents to leverage the unified attribution signals from the CAPI to automate and optimize video investment. That roadmap signals that OpenAP sees the CAPI not just as a reporting layer but as an input into automated buying systems — the same role that platform conversion data plays in algorithmic optimization on Google and Meta.

The phased approach is prudent. Cross-publisher data sharing involves thorny questions about identity resolution, data governance, competitive sensitivity, and attribution methodology. Nine companies agreeing on a shared conversion API is a significant political achievement; actually implementing it at scale with consistent results is the harder technical challenge.

What This Means for Measurement Teams

If you buy TV across multiple publishers, this is the most important measurement development of the upfronts. Individual publisher dashboards and CAPIs are useful, but a standardized cross-publisher CAPI changes the economics of outcomes-based TV buying by collapsing nine integrations into one. Monitor the pilot phase closely and volunteer to participate if your agency or brand qualifies.

Do not wait for the CAPI to mature before investing in your own first-party conversion infrastructure. The CAPI requires advertisers to have clean, server-side conversion data ready to send. Brands that have already built robust conversion tracking for their digital platforms will be able to plug into the TV CAPI fastest. Those still relying on pixel-based tracking or manual reporting will need to upgrade before they can take advantage.

Use the cross-publisher framework as leverage in upfront negotiations. The existence of a standardized CAPI changes the conversation about outcome guarantees. If outcomes can be measured consistently across publishers, buyers have a stronger basis for demanding performance-based deal structures rather than accepting reach-and-frequency guarantees as the default.

Watch for the agentic workflow phase. If the CAPI becomes an input into automated optimization systems, it could fundamentally change how TV budgets are allocated across publishers — shifting from manual scatter and upfront commitments to algorithmic reallocation based on real-time outcome signals. That future is several phases away, but the infrastructure being built now is the foundation for it.

The broader signal from upfronts week is unmistakable: television advertising is converging with digital on measurement expectations, and publishers that cannot prove outcomes will lose share to those that can. The OpenAP CAPI is the TV industry's most ambitious attempt to meet that standard collectively rather than individually. Whether nine competitors can sustain the cooperation required to build shared infrastructure remains the open question — but the alternative, continued fragmentation while digital platforms consolidate measurement advantage, is clearly worse.