"Digital Omnibus: what is at stake for audience measurement?" – Interview with Koenraad Deridder by PUB (translation)

On 19 November 2025, the European Commission submitted a proposal for the Digital Omnibus Package. This extensive legislative package addresses digital regulation by amending several laws at the same time. For audience measurement, the changes to the ePrivacy rules and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are particularly relevant. The aim of the Omnibus is to make the existing legislation simpler and more coherent, with less regulatory burden for companies and more room for innovation.

For the media landscape, this objective in itself is positive. According to Koenraad Deridder, general manager of the Centre for Information on the Media (CIM), the current European rules leave room for different interpretations, for example regarding the question of when user consent is needed for audience measurement. A uniform European regulation could eliminate these differences. But according to CIM, the proposed solution threatens to create new problems.

Contradictory
According to Deridder, the problem is mainly in what measurement organisations are allowed to do with the data. The text currently on the table stipulates that organisations must immediately anonymise or aggregate data and may not edit it afterwards. This could make independent audience measurement by CIM more difficult. “We must be able to continue checking and editing our data. For example, we must be able to recognise bots and filter them out of the results, otherwise we cannot guarantee the quality of our measurements,” says Deridder.

According to Deridder, this restriction conflicts with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which for the first time contains European rules for audience measurement. The regulation must “guarantee media freedom and pluralism as pillars of modern democracy and as conditions for a free and open debate.” Reach measurement plays an important role in this: it makes visible which audiences media reach and thus provides insight into the diversity and reach of the media landscape. If the possibilities for measurement are restricted, according to Deridder the ability to realise the objectives of the EMFA also comes under pressure. Certainly at a time when media are increasingly being used as an instrument by hostile foreign actors. “The provisions of the Digital Omnibus are contradictory to the EMFA and therefore problematic,” he says.

Combining Data
A second fundamental problem raised by Deridder is the limited possibility of linking measurement data to data from other sources. That is precisely what is needed to map today’s media use. CIM wants to move away from separate measurements for television and radio and wants to evolve towards one integrated measurement of video and audio, across different devices and platforms. A traditional TV panel is not sufficient for this. “It mainly maps viewing behaviour at home, while people are increasingly watching videos on their smartphone and outside the home. To see the complete picture, we must be able to combine data from different panels,” Deridder explains.

The same applies to podcasts. A panel cannot possibly measure all the tens of thousands of episodes that are available every month. That is why CIM combines panel data with data from podcast publishers and media groups. The first source provides insight into the audience, the second into the enormous supply and volume. Without that combination, according to Deridder, CIM cannot create a reliable overall picture of the podcast market.

And that is where, according to CIM, the broader danger lies. Independent audience measurements provide the figures on which media companies and advertisers base their decisions. “If measurement organisations can no longer control, process or combine their data, not only the quality of the measurements comes under pressure, but also the comparability of media and therefore the basis on which advertising budgets are distributed.”

United Positions
CIM is not alone in this matter. The organisation is part of the Audience Measurement Coalition, in which various European Joint Industry Committees and research institutes coordinate their positions on the regulation. The parties involved include, among others, Médiamétrie in France, AGF in Germany, NMO in the Netherlands and research companies such as Ipsos and GfK. The aim is to defend a joint position on independent audience measurement towards the European institutions.

Criticism is also being heard from advertisers. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) published in April 2026 a joint position of all its members (such as UBA Belgium) on the Digital Omnibus. In it, the organisation asks for the exception to the consent requirement for audience measurement to be extended to independent third parties. According to the WFA, not only aggregated but also non-aggregated data are needed to make independent and reliable measurements possible, for example for deduplicating reach across different platforms, calculating frequency and detecting deviations or fraud.

Negotiations Are Still Ongoing
The criticism from the measurement and advertising sectors comes at a moment when the European negotiations are still fully ongoing. The text is currently being further dealt with both within the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. According to Deridder, there is a willingness at the European Commission, among the Member States and among various Members of the European Parliament to adjust the provisions. For CIM, it is important that what falls under independent audience measurement is clearly delineated and that measurement organisations can continue to verify, process and combine their data.

The stakes are therefore greater than a technical adjustment of European privacy rules: according to the sector, the question is whether independent and comparable audience figures will also remain possible in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

Translation of Interview door Fien Van Liedekerke (Pub).

Update Pub 21/09/2026:

European negotiations on the Digital Omnibus Package, a legislative package, are still going on. Through this package, the European Commission seeks to simplify several rules relating to digital technologies. For organisations that conduct audience measurement, the proposed rules concerning the processing and combining of data are particularly important. According to the CIM, these provisions could limit the possibilities for independent audience measurement.

The Irish Presidency of the Council  communicated a new version of the proposal last week. Member states had until 15 September to provide their comments on  this text. A further version is expected thereafter.

According to the CIM, the new version still contains provisions that are problematic for independent audience measurement. These include, among other things, the obligation to immediately (pseudo-)anonymise and aggregate data, as well as restrictions on combining data from different sources.

Negotiations are also continuing in the European Parliament. According to the CIM, the process is moving more slowly than initially expected, but the aim remains to reach an agreement in February 2027.

This text (translation) is an update to the article  "Digital Omnibus: what is at stake for audience measurement?",  published on page 16 of  PUB Magazine (French version) and PUB Magazine ( Dutch version).