MIAMI – With more than 60% of video viewing now being done on various digital devices other than desktop and laptop computers, there’s an urgent need to unify cross-screen measurement to maximize the full potential of premium video.

A recent report by FreeWheel highlights in particular the rapid growth of live video (simulcasts and live sports and news events) and notes that over-the-top (OTT) ad views were up 76% in the fourth quarter of 2015. This has deep implications for the way the industry is shaping up, according to James Rothwell, VP, Agency & Brand Relations at FreeWheel.

“It means we really need to solve the measurement challenge that exists within some of those environments, especially OTT,” Rothwell said in an interview at the annual Transformation conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. “It highlights the need for us to federate currencies and measurement across all these screens.”

A second pressing concern is the need to solve for is the data aspect of targeting across different devices, given the large amount of viewing occurring outside of the browser/cookie ecosystem.

“It means we need a whole host of other data sets to be able to find those audiences across different screens,” says Rothwell. “There’s a real challenge ahead of us to de-duplicate audiences as they consume this content across these different devices.”

According to FreeWheel, 65% of all long-form ad views are coming from behind the TV Everywhere authentication wall. Ad views from TV Everywhere sources grew 142% in the fourth quarter of last year.

This video was recorded at the 4A’s Transformation conference in Miami.   For additional interviews, please visit this page. Beet.TV’s coverage of the 4A’s was sponsored by The Trade Desk.