CTV's transparency gap: better data, still no show-level control

Tatari's Tom Discepola unpacks why show-level reporting is arriving without show-level optimisation. A new IAB report found 43% of CTV buyers have little or no confidence in the inventory they are buying, and the market is pushing for program-level visibility. But conversations with the largest publishers and exchanges reveal the gap: a top-five streamer told Tatari its SSP integration cannot pull show-level reporting at all; a premium publisher does not broadly share show-level data; a third conceded its show-level reporting (top 25/50/100 rankings, no impression counts) is "directional at best". Buyers cannot target individual shows programmatically without a programmatic-guaranteed deal or sponsorship, and PMP-based optimisation, the workhorse of performance CTV, is not supported, so genre- or audience-based deals remain the realistic ceiling. The contrast with linear is stark: linear has offered full program-level transparency for decades via pre- and post-roll program logs.

The crux

CTV buyers are being handed more granular data without the ability to act on it, because show-level optimisation is not yet a standard exchange product, which means premium streaming publishers are selling a data story they cannot yet back with control.

Sell-side read

Premium CTV publishers hold the inventory buyers want to target at show level, and whoever ships genuine show-level optimisation first will command the premium, while everyone else defends genre-level pricing.

Watch

Whether a major SSP ships a scaled show-level optimisation product, or programmatic-guaranteed deals become the de facto workaround, within two quarters.