Buy streaming by the show.
You cannot optimize, protect a brand or price fairly what you are not allowed to see, and CTV still hides the one thing linear TV always showed: the program.
26 pieces · 3 authored · related work since 2023
The argument
Television was never sold blind. Linear TV has always traded at the show and network level, where price reflected what the content cost to make and how much people cared about it. CTV kept the screen and threw that model away. I get app-level reporting and, if I’m lucky, a genre label. Show-level data is withheld because publishers are afraid I’ll cherry-pick their best programs. That is not innovation. It’s a regression.
The cost is already showing up. Publishers tell me privately that CTV spend is flattening and buyers are hesitant to push more budget. Of course they are. When you can’t see what you’re buying, every package looks the same, optimization turns into guesswork, and you end up buying the same publisher twice through two different paths. Publishers lose too. Every sales pitch I hear is about the content, and the moment that inventory goes programmatic, the content disappears.
I know what happens when the lights come on. When a partner gave me true show-level transparency, an inclusion list built from top-performing linear shows was the best tactic in the entire campaign. At Rain we built an algorithm to find back doors to show-level data. At InterMedia, working with Peer39 and Pontiac, we got show-level CPA on 94% of a campaign’s impressions, all privacy-safe. I teared up at the first spreadsheet. The Holy Grail is in reach. My challenge to the CTV industry is simple: be better than Google.
The full trail, oldest first
26 pieces- Aug 2023Buyers Are Still Struggling to Know Where Their Ads Ran
Quoted that show-level data is present for only 4% to 10% of open-exchange CTV impressions, and on buying against quality scores with custom algorithms.
- Feb 2024The Trade Desk is rolling out OpenPath to CTV
Quoted as the Associate Director of Digital Video at Rain the Growth Agency, providing media buyer perspectives on the performance-yielding benefits of OpenPath for Connected TV (CTV).
- Feb 2024Case Study: Revolutionizing CTV with Custom AI Algorithms
How Rain and Chalice Custom Algorithms drove brand awareness and direct-response ROAS for a DTC apparel brand on CTV.
- Apr 2024Marketers Find New Ways to Buy Programmatic Ads Without Relying on User Data
“We’re not optimizing against an addressable human audience.” Quoted on optimizing CTV against metadata and premium inventory rather than audience segments.
- May 2024Revolutionizing CTV with Custom AI Algorithms: Driving Performance with Premium CTV Publishers
VAB INSPIRE Spotlight on Innovation roundtable, available on demand, on Rain’s custom-algorithm approach to premium CTV.
- May 2024Case Study: Leveraging Metadata Optimization in Connected TV Advertising
Case study on privacy-forward CTV targeting: optimizing against content metadata instead of audience data as regulation tightens and audience targeting weakens.
- Feb 2025How This Indie Agency Is Finding 'Back Doors' To Get Show-Level Data On CTV
Interviewed on how Rain the Growth Agency navigated the opaque landscape of CTV ad buying by developing an algorithm with Chalice Custom Algorithms to extract show-level data for programmatic bids.
- Feb 2025CTV Transparency? The Search For ‘Show-Level’ Viewer Data
Commentary citing Rain’s show-level CTV algorithm and David’s point that it yields a probabilistic, not deterministic, match.
- Apr 2025CTV Advertising Faces a Transparency Reckoning, Says Rain’s Director Nyurenberg
Video interview: when performance advertisers cannot see which channels, shows and networks they are buying, budgets drift back to Meta and Google.
- May 2025Old-School Linear Meets CTV as InterMedia Hires Digital Lead
ADWEEK covers David joining InterMedia Advertising as SVP of Digital, bringing CTV expertise to a linear-TV-rooted agency.
- May 2025Prime Video Quietly Rolls Out Show-Level Ad Reporting
Quoted on Prime Video becoming the first streamer to offer real-time show-level reporting, and on how show-level pricing could recreate linear-style buying.
- Nov 2025Peer39 Interview Series: David Nyurenberg, SVP of Digital at InterMedia Advertising
Following the Brand Safety Summit, David unpacks the industry's misplaced priorities, the challenges of measuring true brand safety in streaming, and the need for transparency.
- Nov 2025CTV’s Future Lies in Its Past: Why Advertisers Must Embrace Traditional TV Tactics
Interview making the case that digital-style one-to-one metrics are the wrong frame for CTV, and that a hybrid approach rooted in traditional TV planning works better.
- Dec 2025CTV Is Less Transparent Than YouTube. That Should Alarm Everyone
Data-Driven Thinking column on why CTV spend and performance are plateauing: buyers cannot see what they are buying.
- Dec 2025Headed into 2026, Streaming Transparency Takes Center Stage
Cites David’s AdExchanger column on CTV opacity as capturing advertisers’ growing impatience heading into 2026.
- Apr 2026Signal vs. Static: How We Get to True CTV Transparency
At Marketecture Live III in New York, David and Peer39 CEO Mario Diez break down the lack of signal transparency in CTV.
- Apr 2026Linear Thinking Meets CTV Reality / What Actually Makes CTV Work
Two-part conversation (15 and 22 April) on the relationship between linear and CTV, planning and transparency challenges, and what advertisers need to understand to make the channel work in practice.
- May 2026Ep. 134: Why Programmatic Advertising Needs a Reset
Featured guest breaking down the realities of programmatic advertising, CTV transparency, and how lessons from traditional linear TV buying still apply to modern digital environments.
- Jun 2026Is Fox the New King of Connected TV? Breaking Down the Fox–Roku Deal
Panel guest with Kyle Dozeman and Richie Hyden on the strategic implications of the Fox–Roku deal for connected TV.
- Jul 2026CTV Buyers Are Getting The Show-Level Performance Optimization They’ve Always Wanted
Featured on the InterMedia Advertising, Peer39 and Pontiac Intelligence collaboration that delivered show-level cost-per-acquisition data for 94% of CTV impressions.
- Jul 2026Ad Tech Briefing: Corporate America finally buys into soccer as a mainstream sport; shadier elements of the ad industry are obliging
Quoted on CTV sports inventory: supply is not meeting demand, high-value inventory has always attracted bad actors, and CTV’s lack of transparency gives them room.
- Aug 2026InterMedia Advertising Earns Five 2026 AdExchanger Award Nominations
Quoted on InterMedia Advertising being named a finalist in five categories of the 2026 AdExchanger Awards for three collaborative initiatives.
- Sep 2026The FTC’s Amazon Lawsuit Is Ad Tech’s History Of Opacity Repeating Itself
Quoted on transparency and industry accountability, as buy-side experts frame the case as another Big Tech platform exploiting the opacity built into programmatic auctions.
- Sep 2026How Direct CTV Buys Become Programmatic Winners
Podcast guest (S5E5) with a written companion interview, “Unlocking CTV’s Black Box”: three InterMedia projects covering direct publisher buys, privacy-safe show-level targeting and AI sentiment analysis.
- Oct 2026Beyond the Stream: Reimagining the CTV Advertising Experience
Advertising Week session with Anoki, Amagi, Spectrum Reach and others on the roles of context and audience in CTV, and how new ad experiences change the answer.
- Oct 2026How Does Agentic Buying Work In CTV?
Featured alongside Sydney Brower on how InterMedia Advertising's agentic buying workflow actually runs on connected TV, and how nascent the technology still is.