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Kurt Donnell left M&A law for digital media and became the first CEO of Freestar, helping scale it into a global publisher monetization business. Now the open web faces a harder test: declining search traffic, AI answer engines, fragmented AdTech, and advertiser dollars moving to simpler closed platforms. Can radical transparency restore trust, what publishers should demand from AI companies, and whether Freestar’s new pubOS creates real leverage—or merely manages declines.

Publishers create the content, build the audiences, and bear the costs—yet often capture only a fraction of the value they generate. In this Signal & Noise exclusive, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Keith Petri and Rich Hyden of Viant to explore the future of publisher monetization, identity, CTV, signal quality, and programmatic advertising. The conversation examines how publishers can strengthen their position in the digital advertising ecosystem and reclaim econ