Media Rating Council Grants Accreditation to iSpot Measurement Technology

The Media Rating Council has granted accreditation to audience-measurement technology backed by iSpot, one of a handful of start-up companies that have been vying for months to compete more directly with Nielsen.

The MRC, an independent industry organization that scrutinizes various measurement methodologies, has accredited iSpot technology that identifies, verifies and tracks national TV ad occurrences across 178 linear and broadcast networks. The system was first introduced in 2012. The company has struck alliances with a number of media companies, including NBCUniversal. iSpot is also involved with a media-industry committee that is seeking to get new measurement technology accredited by MRC.

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“iSpot’s newly accredited ad occurrence reporting helps to serve a crucial market need, and users can now have assurance that it meets the high bar necessary to achieve MRC accreditation,” said said George W. Ivie, MRC Executive Director and CEO, in a statement.

The move of consumers to broadband video and mobile devices has placed new pressure on media companies who need to provide transparent accounting of their viewership in order to eke out the most money from advertisers and sponsors. And Goldman Sachs in 2022 took a stake in iSpot valued at $325 million stake in iSpot, which acquired the analytics company 605 earlier this month. Other companies, including Comscore and VideoAmp are also in the fray, striking deals with traditional media companies to offer new kinds of audience tabulation. Nielsen was purchased in 2022 by a private-equity consortium for $16 billion.

“We sought accreditation of our national ad occurrence data based on our TV ad cataloging system because we know it to be the most robust, fastest and best solution of its kind for the marketplace, but also because it’s the unshakable foundation for so many products the industry is using to make transaction decisions,” says iSpot Founder, CEO, Sean Muller, in a statement.

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