• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 9, 2023

A story circulating in the trade press (including MediaPost) this morning reports that OpenAP – an entity owned by the largest U.S. TV networks – Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Televisa/Univision, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and network TV ad sales association the Video Advertising Bureau have formed a joint industry committee (JIC) to certify new advertising sales currencies being developed by audience measurement suppliers.

The problem is, it’s not a JIC. At least not the way it has historically been defined and how it functions in other markets around the world. By definition, a JIC is a “joint” industry committee, which in the ad industry means it is tripartite, or jointly owned by advertisers, agencies and their media suppliers.

The reason for that, is to ensure that all sides of the industry have an equal say in the design, development -- and importantly, sourcing the suppliers of audience measurement that is the basis for buying and selling advertising.

And by their own admission in this morning’s announcement, the OpenAP initiative was not conceived that way, noting, “In the coming months, the JIC intends to expand membership to other qualified premium video programmers. The JIC will also elicit active participation from advertising agencies and qualified trade bodies to advance the multi-currency future in this collaborative forum.”

It’s yet another example of the media supply chain – not the demand-side – taking the lead on something that should fundamentally be media-neutral. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of media suppliers not just grading their own homework, but setting the rules they are graded by.

I wrote at length about the efforts of big media suppliers to do this over the past year, especially NBCUniversal, which became the first TV network owner to “certify” its own currency. Despite that – or maybe because of it – MediaPost also named NBCUniversal as its supplier-of-the-year, because it was so influential in making that change and, importantly, in getting advertisers and agencies to accept it.

If you read between the lines of that profile and much of my coverage over the past year, you’ll probably infer that I don’t think it’s a good thing for advertisers to capitulate and let their supply chain set the standards and measures for what they pay for.

It represents a fundamental sea change for the ad industry, but in another way, recognizes that the rules of the digital advertising supply chain have supplanted the ones that the TV (and other traditional media) were founded on.

That said, I don’t think you’re likely to hear much if any pushback from advertisers or agencies, and the OpenAP initiative will likely succeed, ad agencies and “qualified trade bodies” will join and everyone will call it a JIC. Except it won’t be a JIC in the true spirit of the concept, because it won’t have been organized by advertisers, agencies and their supply chain.