SMI Expands AccuTV With Nielsen Data

Standard Media Index (SMI), a media pricing data company, plans on becoming even more accurate thanks to a new agreement with Nielsen.

SMI sources its data from the invoicing systems from media agency holding groups to see the real dollars spent on each ad buy across all media types. SMI works with five of the seven major media holding groups and many leading independents — making up 70% of the national TV market and 60% of premium digital.

SMI’s flagship national television product, AccuTV, models out the remaining 30% of spend using occurrence data. Beginning on Oct. 23, SMI will use Nielsen Ad Intel’s occurrence level data as the underlying source of spots for this national TV product.

SMI says this enhancement has many benefits. First, the number of networks that SMI measures will increase by nearly two-thirds to more than 130 channels.  Second, this new agreement will allow SMI to provide deeper insights around new and emerging ad types.

“SMI’s AccuTVTM has already been delivering 95%-plus accuracy against the networks internal revenue numbers,” said James Fennessy, SMI CEO. “This enhancement will only improve this accuracy and provide near full market coverage. Senior network executives are excited about the different data applications our enhanced insights will be able to fuel. Our agency partners are also thrilled about our expanded coverage which will help them better size the market, optimize delivery, and help gauge sales gaps more accurately.”

“We’re thrilled to work with SMI and help power their client and agency initiatives,” said Kelly Abcarian, SVP, product leadership, Nielsen. “By fostering this relationship, SMI will now be one of the most comprehensive and complete sources of advertising intelligence available in the market and will be able to unlock the power of these insights across the broad media landscape in an accurate and unprecedented fashion as a way to drive client value.”

The updated SMI AccuTVTM product will be available on Oct. 23. The entire AccuTVTM dataset, going back to 2014, will be updated to reflect the changes and to keep all data aligned for accurate YOY comparisons.