Frankfurt, September 15, 2025. Around 300 representatives from the media, advertising and research sectors accepted the invitation of AGF Videoforschung to attend this year’s AGF Forum in Frankfurt’s Union Halle. Under the motto “Content is King. Reach is Queen”, the event offered a high-profile line-up and wide-ranging insights into current developments in the media and advertising industry.
In addition to presentations on ongoing AGF projects and partnerships, particular focus was placed on hybrid reach measurement models, especially cross-media campaign measurement, and the establishment of standards for greater comparability across media types. With these measures, AGF aims to provide orientation in an increasingly digital and complex media world, to advance standards, and to safeguard the market’s future viability.
“This year’s forum once again underlines how central the questions of reach and comparability are for the market. The wide range of perspectives - from regulation to audience research and the integration of international platforms - highlights the responsibility we all share in addressing the challenges of a digital and fragmented media landscape,” said Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, CEO of AGF Videoforschung GmbH.
In her opening keynote, Niederauer-Kopf highlighted net reach as the decisive KPI in a fragmented media landscape and explained why it is indispensable as a yardstick for the relevance of content and the cross-comparable evaluation of campaigns within target groups. “Only when we know how many people within a target group we actually reach can investments be steered effectively and content unfold its full impact,” she said. She pointed to AGF’s hybrid measurement approach, which combines smart panel data with anonymous big datasets, describing it as the master move in implementing cross-campaign measurement - also by international comparison. Later in the day, Martin Landgraf and Dr. Stefan Czoschke elaborated on the concrete steps AGF is currently taking to make such an approach to cross-media ex-post campaign evaluation a reality.
Following the opening, Dr. Tobias Schmid (Director of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Media Authority) delivered his keynote “Where is the Level Playing Field?”, stressing the need for up-to-date media regulation. He emphasized that media categories can no longer be regarded in isolation but are increasingly interwoven - which is why existing regulatory systems must be reviewed and further developed. He particularly pointed out that while diversity is desirable, it only enriches democratic debate when offerings with a journalistic foundation actively support opinion formation. While traditional media - particularly broadcasting - are governed by clear rules, the digital sphere is often dominated by the principle of individual freedom of expression, making it more difficult to balance with societal values and democratic responsibility. Youth protection and human dignity are already regulated, but advertising rules and measures for positive and negative diversity assurance also need to be taken to a new level. “Treat equals equally, but not everything is equal. Diversity does not arise automatically just because more content is available – what matters is that it enriches democratic debate. With the power shift of information flows towards platforms, it is time to level regulatory systems and actively safeguard diversity,” Schmid said.
The subsequent discussion between Prof. Dr. Thomas Höppner (Partner / Lawyer, Geradin Partners), Juliane Paperlein and Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, entitled “DMA & European Media Freedom Act – Why Transparency in Measurement Matters”, centered on why comprehensive data access and comparable, transparent measurement are indispensable for the market and for safeguarding media, and what risks an imbalanced level playing field entails. Höppner emphasized that existing systems such as Joint Industry Committees (JICs) must be strengthened, highlighting their relevance as an instance of trust and neutrality.
Thomas Lückerath (CEO and Founder, DWDL) took a look at the latest trends in German television. In addition to audience magnets such as live sports broadcasts, hybrid shows and series comebacks also made it into the top trends.Susanne Aigner (Head of Advertising, Netflix) and Katharina Koch (Head of Ads Measurement, AGF Videoforschung) discussed the cooperation between Netflix and AGF, launched at the beginning of the year. Netflix emphasized its clear orientation toward the German advertising market, stating that AGF was its only partner in this regard. The cooperation was described as a unique global project, aimed at making streaming measurable and comparable, including through innovative technologies such as server-to-server measurement. Market feedback has been very positive, with agencies and advertisers welcoming the partnership.
The presentation by Kristian Meinken (CEO, Pilot Group) entitled ‘ID or “I die”? The fundamental importance of ID solutions for the media market’ emphasised that only a joint approach by all market participants would be effective. He made it clear that neutral deterministic ID solutions are system-independent and at the same time fully compliant with data protection regulations and should be used by the market in order to create a sustainable, independent basis for the market. ‘Now is the time to switch to an ID-based infrastructure in the market in order to secure digital sovereignty,’ Meinken emphasised.
The congress concluded with a discussion entitled ‘A new model: Why TV and video need to be planned differently’. The panel included Haruka Gruber (SVP Media & Head of Central Europe, DAZN Group), Stefanie Jäckel (Chief Strategy Officer, Ad Alliance), Daniel Jäger (CEO OWM & Head of Group Media Telekom), Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf (Chairwoman of the Management Board, AGF Videoforschung) and Karin Ross (Chief Media Officer DACH, Publicis Groupe). The focus was on the requirements for transparency and comparability of offers on the market and the question of which KPIs will be particularly relevant in the future. It became clear that the market now needs uniform standards and persistent identifiers such as Utiq and NetID in order to evaluate campaigns validly. ‘As advertisers, we need comparable, deduplicated reach across all market players and it has to be completely objective,’ emphasised Jäger. He welcomed AGF's approach of combining the best of both worlds, i.e. insights from international approaches with the foundation of AGF and innovative ID solutions.
The subsequent get-together provided an opportunity for personal exchange between guests and speakers. The AGF Forum 2025 once again demonstrated the importance of reach and comparability as key performance indicators for the market – and underlined the industry's shared commitment to consistently developing existing standards.