LG Ad Solutions will put attention tags on all connected TV ads that run on its 35 million U.S. TVs, allowing for an unprecedented look at how streaming ads stack up against linear TV and other digital media in holding viewer attention.

LG is the first TV manufacturer to announce such an integration, though other deals are near announcement, according to Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research. The partnership incorporates Lumen technology globally and, in the U.S., TVision’s panel of 5,000 households equipped with devices that allow tracking of who in a household is watching, when and for how long. LG will use the TVision pixel embedded in ads, processed using the Lumen platform.

“This allows buyers the same view across all the different types of inventory LG provides,” said Mike Brooks, head of business development for LG Ad Solutions. Beyond the U.S., the partnership will also measure CTV ad attention in the Europe Middle East and Africa region initially and ultimately elsewhere, Brooks said.While TVision is focused on TV, Lumen tracks attention across a wide range of digital and other media, including recent studies with Dentsu involving cinema, audio and gaming.

“What’s exciting about this is the ability to compare not just across TV but using the same units of attention across all these other media as well,” said Follett. “It’s unsurprising that LG wants to do this, because they come off very well. Their ad inventory is extremely strong.

The LG partnership will cover such metrics as viewable impressions, average view time, attention per 1,000 impressions and attentive cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM).

Realistically, most media buyers and brands today focus first on digital and second on TV or CTV, even if the cost per thousand (CPMs) is generally much higher for TV, Follett said.

Attention measures are key to justifying those relative CPMs, he said, even if writing guarantees against such measures remains rare.

“Until recently, we have only looked at reach as the key metric,” Follett said. “But that’s only half the story. It’s also about how much attention you’re getting and how long the attention span is.”

There may be limits to whether some on the network sell side can incorporate TVision attention data alongside Nielsen audience data to help justify their CPMs relative to digital media. Newer Nielsen contracts with networks prohibit the commingling of Nielsen and TVision data unless a media company pays Nielsen an added fee, which has become a point of contention in litigation between Nielsen and TVision).

But it’s not clear these sorts of contract exclusions will affect LG’s partnership, which involves reporting what happens when network ads run on LG screens. Executives of LG, Lumen and Tvision declined to comment on that.

The TVision exclusion may not be an issue for LG, given LG’s different contract standing with Nielsen and Lumen’s role as an intermediary processing the data. Regardless, Nielsen deals with networks wouldn’t affect using VideoAmp, iSpot.tv or Comscore data as the audience basis for coming up with attentive CPM calculations.