ISpot An Audience Measurement Provider And Nielsen Competitor Invests In TVision

Earlier today TVision, an audience measurement company, announced a new round of investments totaling $16 million. The investment round was led by iSpot, another audience measurement company.

TVision provides second-by-second, person-level data on how people watch TV – who’s watching, what they’re watching, and how much attention they are paying for both linear and connected TV. iSpot provides cross-platform measurement as well as creative testing, audience verification and business outcomes. iSpot utilizes data that comes from tens of millions of smart TV’s, Multichannel Video Program Distributors (MVPDs) and TiVo nationwide.

iSpot has a client base consisting of hundreds of brands and all major TV networks including NBCUniversal. Earlier this year NBCUniversal used iSpot for an ad measurement and as a currency test for such high-profile television events as the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics. In March NBCUniversal announced they would be using iSpot’s cross-platform audience measurement as their “official currency for the 2022-23 upfronts”. In June NBCUniversal announced 40% of their nearly completed upfront negotiations had used measurement guarantees beyond traditional age and gender.

TVision’s investment will be used for the continued transformation and modernization of their person-level panel measurement. This includes the enhancement of TVision’s patented technology of passively measuring audiences and attentiveness with their eyes-on screen methodology used for programming and ads on linear TV and CTV. The announcement came at a time when viewer behaviors are changing as adoption of CTV continues to increase. In addition, the investments come when TV and cross-platform audience measurement methodologies are being upgraded.

The financial agreement expands the licensing relationship iSpot already has with TVision with measuring co-viewing and person-level metrics of TV viewing. With the agreement, iSpot will be the only audience measurement provider with access to TVision’s streaming audience panel that measures more than 900 streaming apps and publishers.

In a statement iSpot CEO and Founder, Sean Muller notes, “Our investment in TVision is an investment in the future of CTV and cross-platform TV currencies,”. “We applaud the innovations of TVision in building the home panel of the future, and are looking forward to more advancements from TVision fueled by our investment.” As part of the investment, Muller will be joining the TVision board.

TVision CEO, Yan Liu adds, “Future video currencies that leverage both census and panel data will provide the industry with a more accurate understanding of who is really watching TV regardless of how that content gets to the screen. TVision has pioneered a new approach and put the infrastructure in place to transform how co-viewing and personification of audiences work for the TV industry. Together with great customers and the latest strategic investment round from iSpot, we’re positioned to help fuel a new, more transparent, and open TV ecosystem.”

Kelly Abcarian, EVP, Measurement & Impact NBCUniversal who has been spearheading industry-wide improvement of audience measurement, says, “Combining iSpot’s massive panel with TVision’s modern approach to counting real people helps advertisers measure co-viewing across linear and CTV with greater accuracy across households and diverse audiences. A cross-platform currency, based on the exact ad and powered by fast and accurate co-viewing metrics, will also bring a completely new approach to valuing premium content.”

This is the latest announcement iSpot has made to enhance their audience measurement capabilities by either acquisition, partnership or investment, as they seek to replace Nielsen as the primarily negotiating currency for television and cross-platform audiences.

Last year iSpot acquired DRMetrix and Ace Metrix, both companies measure ads. Earlier this year iSpot acquired Tunity and ad tech company that specializes in measuring the live audio of out-of-home TV viewing nationwide using an app. In September iSpot reached an agreement with Conviva, a streaming analytics company. iSpot will integrate Conviva’s streaming data into their unified cross-platform audience measurement product.

The announcement comes at a time when audience measurement methodologies continue to be in a state of flux. Earlier this week, industry watchdog, the Media Rating Council announced it was not ready to re-accredit Nielsen. Nielsen had their MRC accreditation suspended in September 2021. Nielsen, which was acquired by a consortium of private equity firms in September for $16 billion, has also been focusing on the launch of their cross-platform measurement product Nielsen ONE scheduled to be fully operational in 2024.

In a statement, David Gunzerath, senior VP, associate director of the MRC said, “While it is true the existing suspension of MRC accreditation remains in place at the current time, it is also true that we believe Nielsen has made significant progress on most of the issues that led to that suspension and the MRC continues to actively work with Nielsen on a path to address the remaining issues so that a consideration of reinstatement of accreditation to the National TV service may occur relatively soon.”

In August iSpot named Will Waldron as VP of research. Waldon came from the U.S. Census Bureau with the task of overseeing iSpot’s MRC accreditation process. At present, iSpot’s TV ad occurrence data is under MRC review.