comScore

Bill Livek, who announced plans to retire as CEO of Comscore at the end of 2022, bought 600,000 shares of Comscore stock for $1.15 million, according to a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Livek purchased the shares on May 31 and June 1 for prices between $1.90 and $1.93 a share. He now owns 2.4 million shares of Comscore.

The measurement company said its first quarter net loss was $9.3 million, or 14 cents a share, compared to a $36 million loss, or 49 cents a share, a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA rose to $6.8 million from $5.6 million. Revenues increased 4% to $94 million from $90.3 million a year ago.

Building on more TV measurement tests from TV advertising sellers, Xandr, the advanced advertising/marketplace unit now owned by Microsoft, announced it has struck deals with six measurement companies in preparation for the upfront TV market. Comscore, EDO, Samba TV, TVision, VideoAmp, and 605 will work with Xandr’s buy- and sell-side advanced TV platforms — Invest TV and Monetize TV.

Effectv, the local advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, has struck a deal with Comscore, for its local TV measurement product, to be a “new form of currency” for Comcast’s local cable TV advertising deals. With the deal, Effectv will use Comscore’s audience impression-based measurement product for local advertising clients.

The Comscore/SMI eCPM solution provides unified metrics for evaluating, planning and optimizing audience-based campaigns on TV.

At a time when the ad industry is developing and testing a variety of alternate currencies for planning and buying media, Comscore has chosen a long-time Madison Avenue media-buying exec as its first “vice president of currency.” Elizabeth Daly, who most recently was VP-group media director of video investment at IPG’s Mediahub Worldwide unit, has been named to lead Comscore’s “currency initiatives,” the company said.

The tumultuous measurement space is getting upended yet again: Bill Livek, Comscore CEO and executive vice chairman, plans to retire after more than four decades in media measurement. But the Comscore chief won’t be leaving quite yet. He’ll transition into the role of non-executive vice chairman after his successor is named and plans to serve through the completion of his term in mid-2024.

Comscore, which has been losing money since problems cropped up in its financial reports five years ago, turned in positive net income of $29 million for the fourth quarter. Revenue was $96.5 million, up 7%.

DoubleVerify and Comscore say they formed a partnership to verify and measure cross-screen ad campaigns.The new service combines DoubleVerify’s “Authentic Ads,” a metric that verifies ads are fully viewed by a real person in a brand-suitable environment, with Comscore’s Campaign Ratings cross-platform product, which provides data on deduplicated reach and frequency across TV, connected TV, desktop and mobile.

The Media Rating Council, the industry’s measurement watchdog, said that Comscore’s national and local TV measurement products are currently in the accreditation process and are undergoing an MRC audit. The MRC said the update is part of an effort to be more transparent.

Comscore is launching Comscore Everywhere, a single-source unified cross-platform measurement service. This comes as Comscore continues to work specifically with other media networks and companies — NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, for example — in finding new measurement alternatives. One recent addition is an association with WarnerMedia, according to one report.

Comscore, a longtime rival to Nielsen in the business of measuring media audiences, is vowing to keep pace as advertisers seek new ways of counting viewers who watch their favorite shows in a dizzying array of new formats. Comscore said it would launch “Comscore Everywhere,” a measurement product that aims to count unduplicated audiences across various media and screens. The company, which expects to add new phases to the product throughout 2022, does so as Nielsen is working on a similar initiative, all part of a large-scale move by the media and advertising industries to use new technology to tabulate audience is more precise fashion and with more discrete methods.

Comscore said it acquired Shareablee, a measurement company that specializes in the social media space, for as much as $45 million on Thursday. Shareablee’s analytics are used by clients including Mondelez, GroupM,  ESPN, NBCUniversal and Vox Media.

Comscore on Tuesday promoted Brian Pugh to chief information officer, a new post at the measurement company. Previously Comscore’s EVP of product technology, Pugh will be responsible for launching cost-effective technology-based products that ensure that the company’s data is secure and privacy-compliant. He will also oversee the accreditation of the company’s measurement services.

Comscore reported improved results for this year’s third quarter, and also took the opportunity to announce that it’s in talks to get its measurement solutions used as currency during the next television upfront. The company is “in the middle of discussions with national TV networks to use Comscore’s measurement, as currency especially, as we move into next year’s upfront market,” CEO Bill Livek told investors during the earnings call.

Univision has selected Comscore as its exclusive linear local audience measurement provider for Hispanic TV stations it is acquiring in Washington, D.C., and Tampa and Orlando, Florida. The companies said they will also work together to “refine” Comscore’s measurement capabilities to capture more of the Hispanic audience.

Comscore said today it has begun measuring viewing across YouTube and YouTube TV across YouTube’s biggest platforms, including personal computers, mobile devices and connected TV. Comscore will be able to provide metrics for de-duplicated viewing of campaigns on YouTube and YouTube TV for advertisers and measure the co-viewing of content on CTV screens.

Comscore said it is seeking to have its national and local TV measurement products audited by the the Media Rating Council earlier than previously planned. A process leading to potential accreditation of Comscore’s ratings service could begin as soon as October.

On the heels of a joint report estimating advertisers place $2.6 billion annually in digital media buys on publishers of misinformation, Comscore and NewsGuard are launching a new service to help thwart it. Comscore said it will integrate NewsGuard’s data into its pre-bid contextual targeting options for the demand-side platforms (DSPs) it works with, enabling advertisers and agencies to select custom NewsGuard segments that exclude publishers of misinformation from their ad buys.

The second quarter loss was $18.5 million, or 28 cents a share, compared to a loss of $10.4 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue slid to $87.7 million from $88.6 million a year ago.

The new deal with Fox, which comes as networks and distributors have criticized Nielsen for under-counting viewing during the pandemic, includes ComScore’s TV measurement service.

A year after Nielsen left the field of digital out-of-home media measurement, one of the field’s highest profile suppliers, GSTV (Gas Station TV), has signed with Comscore to utilize its fledgling place-based media audience measurement service. As part of the agreement, Comscore said it will report digital ad impressions, reach and frequency for each market and demographic GSTV sells as part of its national video advertising network.

Since the pandemic, many TV stations are facing measurement and under-delivery issues that they fear will only be compounded by Nielsen’s inclusion of BBO homes in October. While Nielsen is working to improve the sample, the uncertainty has some broadcasters turning to less Nielsen-reliant alternatives. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Comscore, taking another swipe at ratings rival Nielsen, said its local-market data shows that during the pandemic, TV usage climbed starting last March, then decreased, but still finished the year higher than in 2019. Nielsen has been under fire for under-counting viewing with its panel-based data showing that TV usage was lower during the pandemic.

Comscore has signed the first media company to participate in its national addressable TV programmer measurement trials: WarnerMedia. Under the agreement, which began in late 2020, WarnerMedia is the first to test Comscore’s program, which allows publishers to execute and measure their national linear addressable inventory across multiple MVPD and connected TV providers for the first time.

Comscore posted a loss in the first quarter, but reported a small increase in revenue. The report follows Comscore resetting its finances with a $204 million investment from Charter, Qurate Retail and Cerberus. The first quarter net loss was $36.4 million, or 49 cents a share, compared to a $13.2 million loss, or $19 cents a share, a year ago. The 2021 loss includes a $15.3 million non-chase charge related to the recapitalization.

The new contract extends ViacomCBS’s portfolio rights for linear television currency.

The drop to $90 million came primarily from lower syndicated digital and movie revenue offset by increases in custom marketing solutions and Activation.

Comscore reported a fourth quarter loss as the company prepared to close a deal that promises to wipe out the measurement company’s debt. The company said it lost $13.2 million, or 18 cents a share, in the quarter, compared to a loss of $21.4 million, or 31 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue dropped to $90 million from $95.2 million a year ago.