The U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) announced Comscore and VideoAmp have received full certification as a transactional currency for the U.S. advertising marketplace. The move comes more than six months after the JIC granted conditional currency to Comscore, VideoAmp, and iSpot, which remains conditionally certified pending a final certification decision, which will be made by the JIC in June, in time for the 2024-25 upfront advertising marketplace.
Focusing its measurement efforts on the upcoming TV and video upfront market, NBCUniversal will be integrating its first-party identity data with that of VideoAmp for NBCU’s One Platform Total Audience. The expanded deal with VideoAmp for One Platform will offer audience-based cross-platform planning and measurement — looking for the overlap of viewing usage of linear and streaming audiences.
Josh Chasin is out as chief measurability officer of VideoAmp, one of three audience measurement research suppliers to receive conditional certification as an advertising currency by the U.S. JIC (joint industry committee). The move follows the ouster late last week of founder and CEO Ross McCray, who hired Chasin two years ago from chief research officer of Comscore, which along with iSpot.tv are the other two conditionally certified JIC ad currencies.
Inscape, the data unit of smart TV maker Vizio, said it will be providing expanded coverage of local TV stations by tapping into smart TV tuners in all U.S. markets. Data from 22 million opted-in smart TVs will be used by stations and measurement companies, including Comscore and VideoAmp, to provide more detailed viewing information from a larger number of viewers.
The founder of VideoAmp, a measurement-technology start-up that has been vying with Nielsen and others to create a new means of tabulating video audiences, is stepping down from his CEO role just as the company plans to lay off nearly a fifth of its staff. Ross McCray, who led VideoAmp as it struck deals with titans such as Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, will remain as a shareholder and board member at VideoAmp, but will be replaced by Peter Liguori, an industry veteran who has led Fox Entertainment, FX and Tribune Media, among other companies.
The quest for a new way to measure TV audiences has taken years of tests, dozens of efforts to sample upstart technologies and hours of debates among big media companies, Madison Avenue buying firms and blue-chip advertisers. At present, no one seems to have devised a perfect solution. So Byron Allen decided to try.
Exclusives
Another TV network group, Hallmark Media, has added VideoAmp as a “currency’ to make deals for advanced audiences and demographic guarantees. A year ago, VideoAmp said Hallmark Channel posted the best cable TV network results for its holiday season of programming in the fourth quarter for households with persons 18 years and older — as well as being tops among viewers 18-49 and 25-54, females 18-49, and females 25-54. VideoAmp says this ranking excludes broadcast, news, sports and kids’ networks.
Allen Media Group’s The Weather Channel Television Network is now using VideoAmp as its primary ad currency during the upfront season. “The Weather Channel is very proud to be the […]
Nielsen challengers Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp were granted conditional certification as currency for buying and selling advertising by the U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) set up by media companies to set modern standards for audience measurement in a multiplatform environment.
The Joint Industry Committee looking to create standards for measuring television viewing, has come out with the scoring system it will use to evaluate measurement companies seeking certification from the JIC, including Comscore, InnovidXP, iSpot, SambaTV, VideoAmp and 605.
VideoAmp is tapped to be AMG’s primary and preferred currency provider.
Buyers and sellers are still playing with alternative currencies such as VideoAmp, iSpot are Comscore, but nothing will take the place of C3/C7 ratings in a majority of this year’s upfront sales. 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.
Allen Media Group told advertisers at its upfront lunch on Wednesday in New York that it has retained VideoAmp to handle TV measurement. “Nielsen does a horrible job,” said Byron Allen, Allen Media Group founder-CEO. Allen has sued Nielsen for fraud, alleging that Nielsen measurement failure cost his company money.
Warner Bros. Discovery says it will partner with Comscore and VideoAmp for “alternative currencies” when it comes to making deals with national advertisers across its linear TV and advanced advertising inventory for this year’s upfront ad market.
Warner Bros Discovery has enlisted measurement firm VideoAmp to track ad campaigns across screens for the company’s network and brand portfolio, which spans sports, news, lifestyle and entertainment. An announcement of the companies’ agreement said it followed the completion of a “first-of-its-kind test-and-learn” process designed to turn up alternative ways to gauge video ad performance.
Advertising measurement platform VideoAmp says it now offers a second-by-second measurement tool for TV-video marketers. The measurement tool combines data from smart TV ACR (automated content recognition) data and set-top box TV home viewership data across more than 39 million TV homes.
The CTO will head up product, engineering, research & development at the TV measurement firm.
Nielsen and agencies have cited a lack of Mediaocean integration as a barrier for new currencies, but VideoAmp and Comscore now have cleared it, and iSpot.tv could be next.
TelevisaUnivision is getting more entrenched in TV’s measurement wars. The Spanish-language media giant is teaming up with data company VideoAmp, one of a growing number of audience-measurement companies whose services are being tapped as TV networks mull alternatives to Nielsen, the industry’s de factor arbiter of audience size. Under terms of the pact, TelevisaUnivision will use VideoAmp’s data in a suite of advanced advertising solutions, giving advertisers a better sense of the viewers they are reaching and their responses to commercials.
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.
Comcast’s advertising division said it has licensed viewing data from the set-top-boxes in subscribers’ home to VideoAmp, one of the measurement companies looking to provide an alternative to Nielsen in the race to provide a cross-platform currency for buying and selling TV advertising. Adding data from Comcast’s footprint should make VideoAmp’s product more stable and reliable, the companies said.
The Association of National Advertisers has announced plans to test that a cross-media measurement system from advertising software/data company VideoAmp in the U.S. The news is the latest development in a push by advertisers and media to broaden their measurement options amid the controversy over Nielsen’s undercounting of TV audiences during the pandemic’s height and its loss of MRC accreditation.
The network aims for “symmetry” by having agencies use the same tool for currency as for planning.
Companies in the advanced advertising business have formed the TV Data Initiative, a group that will look to accelerate the use of data in the television industry. The group includes Dish Media, Blockgraph, MadHive, VideoAmp, Eyeota and TVSquared and plans to spend the next six months assessing the state of data in the advanced TV ecosystem and identify challenges and opportunities.
Video/TV advertising measurement company VideoAmp has hired Omnicom Media Group’s Jonathan Steuer as EVP of TV strategy and currency. In this new position, Steuer’s responsibilities will include developing new cross-media platform measurement — a “currency-grade transaction-ready TV dataset” for media buyers and sellers, delivery providers and other vendors. This would include all areas that involve linear TV, OTT, digital and walled gardens.
