At a Thinkbox event in September, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 announced Lantern, a new measurement panel aimed at tracking the short-term impact of TV advertising on sales.

The goal for the initiative, which is aiming to fully launch in 2026 following a period of testing and requests for proposals, is to help provide TV with “the measurement it deserves” in an era when brands have increasingly demanded more outcomes-based measurement solutions, rather than simply measuring audiences.

Sameer Modha is measurement innovation lead for commercial at ITV and sits on the commercial board of UKOM. Matt Hill is director of insight and measurement at Sky Media and formerly director of research and planning at TV marketing trade body Thinkbox.

Both have had a strong hand in the early development of Lantern. They joined The Media Leader Podcast to discuss the project – its purpose, goals and timeline – as well as how TV measurement efforts need to adapt more broadly to address the needs of advertisers.

Modha and Hill also spoke about how Lantern will help attract new-to-TV advertisers, how the project is "fundamentally different" from Isba's cross-media measurement initiative Origin and why the majority of media buying is now spent on outcomes, not eyeballs.

"In the end, buying outcomes rather than buying eyeballs has won in the market," said Modha. "We can either sit on our hands and just ignore that or say no, no – actually, we've got a fantastic ad product and it is great at doing those things, but we haven't surfaced that in a way that can play a part in those finance conversations."

Highlights:

4:44: The when, how and why of Lantern

13:10: Targeting new-to-TV brands and the problem with attribution

19:54: The challenge of cross-industry collaboration

24:37: Lantern's launch timeline

39:16: Has brand advertising become passé in an era of outcomes-based measurement?

50:21: What the future of TV measurement looks like

Related articles:

ITV, Sky, C4 reveal Lantern audience measurement launch

Lantern joint measurement panel could be live ‘by 2026’

Thinkbox research lead Matt Hill to join Sky Media

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Thanks to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.

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