“It’s not about deserving”: Agencies ask publishers to prove measurable business impact

New Delhi: “You can get the maximum impact from advertising and associating with news rather than advertising on Truecaller, purely and merely to get reach,” this pointed remark from Hemant Jain, President & Head of Digital Business at Lokmat Media Group at the Digital News Publishers Association conclave 2026, set the tone for a candid, almost uncomfortable conversation between news publishers and agency leaders. 

The session brought together Kartik Sharma, Chief Executive Officer of Omnicom Media Group India; Vinod Thadani, CGO of Dentsu Media and CEO of iProspect; and Santosh P Kumar, COO of Innocean India. 

At the heart of the debate was a hard truth: digital commands nearly 60–65% of India’s total advertising spend, yet digital news publishers are fighting for scraps at the bottom of the pie.

Not a product problem, but a measurement problem

Sharma was clear from the outset. The issue, he said, is not weak journalism or poor inventory, but weak measurement. 

He pointed out that most advertisers are steadily moving away from impression-led buying. While a significant chunk of budgets is still split between direct buys and programmatic, what clients increasingly demand are outcomes and outcomes layered across the funnel.

“Ultimately, sales. But it could be a brand lift measure. It could be a lead. It could be a form fill. Or it could be signing up for an event.”

In other words, news publishers cannot walk into media plans selling impressions and CTRs alone. They must reframe conversations around business impact, even if that means starting with something as basic as driving qualified traffic to a brand’s website and building benchmarks over time.

Sharma was blunt about the mindset. “You can't run the digital publishing business with a legacy mindset of what you could have done on print. The print business is a placement business. The digital publishing business is a tech business.”

For agencies today, the pressure has escalated. They are no longer answering only to CMOs. “We are meeting the founders; we are meeting stakeholders who are putting their money,” Sharma said. “The questions are not just coming from a CMO; it's coming from family office money. And they want quick results.”

Performance is not just CPA

Thadani pushed back against a narrow understanding of performance. “Whether it is 70%, 60%, 80%… the question is, what is performance?”

For him, performance is not restricted to cost-per-sale metrics. It spans consultation, consideration, brand lift and conversion. But he warned that publishers often box themselves into “top of funnel” conversations.

“If you need to monetise, you need to go out there and not be labelled only as top of funnel.”

The agency world, he argued, expects publishers to define where they can credibly play across the full funnel journey and back it with measurable proof. He also introduced a tougher commercial expectation: skin in the game.

“I don't see that happening from any of the news publishers where they say that okay, this is the thing that we are ready to offer you, and if that doesn't work, I'm okay to take that cut.”

For agencies managing variable compensation structures and outcome-linked contracts with brands, publishers must demonstrate similar accountability if they want a larger performance share. There is also foundational work to be done.

Thadani spoke about taxonomy alignment, data play, measurable outcomes and consortium thinking. Simply claiming a share of ad dollars because news is credible, he implied, will not suffice.

“It's not about just deserving, and hence we should have that pie,” he said.
From brand safety to brand suitability

Santosh P Kumar tackled one of news publishing’s most repeated grievances: brand safety exclusions. “Most of the brands have moved from brand safety to brand suitability,” he said.

Instead of blanket avoidance of political or sensitive content, brands now evaluate whether the content context aligns with brand values. This is an opportunity for credible publishers, but only if they present contextual solutions rather than generic inventory.

He contrasted high-intent news consumption with “mindless social scrolling,” acknowledging that social platforms win because they combine audience signals with deterministic data. “Currently, most of the money is going into deterministic data,” he said. “Deterministic data typically comes from logged-in environments, whereas news platforms mostly operate in non-logged-in environments.”

This logged-in deficit puts news at a disadvantage in identity-driven planning. Kumar suggested deeper integration, collaboration and API ecosystems to close that gap.
He posed a direct question to publishers: how many have deployed VCR? How many have built API frameworks? How many can measure content depth and audience quality robustly? The implied answer, he said, is not enough.

CTV, CPMs and the risk of commoditisation

The panel also touched on connected TV. While CTV growth is undeniable, publishers fear being pushed into CPM-based programmatic buys instead of premium spot rates.
Kumar offered a pragmatic lens. Agencies, he said, look at content, not format silos. CTV brings better data and measurement possibilities than linear television ever did. The opportunity lies in leveraging those signals and packaging integrated brand solutions across platforms.

“It’s not always about efficiency; it’s effectiveness as well.”

Ultimately, whether inventory is sold on CPM or seconds may depend less on agencies and more on how publishers value and position their product.

A mindset reset

Across the discussion, a common thread emerged: transformation is unavoidable. Sharma summed it up starkly. The industry has shifted from placement-led thinking to tech and risk-driven models. Agencies are absorbing business targets, embracing AI tools and restructuring around outcome accountability.

“Recognise the fact that it's a shift from legacy mindset,” he said. “Start copying some of those things. There's nothing wrong with doing that.”

For news publishers, the survival equation may lie in three pillars Kumar outlined: trust, transparency and technology.

Trust, he acknowledged, is already earned. Transparency is improving. Technology, however, remains the decisive lever.

As Jain’s opening remark underscored, news remains culturally central, especially in regional India. The attention is deep. The impact can be powerful. But in a digital ecosystem dominated by audience buying, deterministic data and performance pressure, cultural relevance alone does not guarantee media share.

To win back space in media plans, publishers must move beyond reach narratives and embrace measurable outcomes, logged-in ecosystems, integrated commerce experiments and shared risk models. The advertising pie may be expanding. The question is whether news can evolve fast enough to claim a bigger slice.