Historically, media companies and advertisers relied on Nielsen to establish the media currency that informs the ad buys. However, the rise of players like iSpot.tv, VideoAmp, and ComScore, allow them to select media measurement vendors that have enhanced omnichannel audience viewing data and insights. Advertisers and media companies with more holistic omnichannel media insights can better value media assets and measure potential outcomes. For advertisers, that means more efficient and effective media buys.

With the challenges faced by legacy measurement company Nielsen, and the networks and brands seeking their own solutions, iSpot.tv founder and CEO Sean Muller sees plenty of opportunity. NBCU chose iSpot.tv as its first alternative measurement partner in January. We caught up with Muller a few hours after the Goldman Sachs news broke, and just after he spoke at Adweek’s Convergent TV summit on Wednesday. “My phone’s been blowing up all morning, even as we’re standing here.” For now, Muller says “it’s business as usual,” just more of it. Watch:

Goldman Sachs’ $325 million acquisition of a minority stake comes as iSpot claims that its utility as a TV currency is gaining adoption. The company recently completed 60 currency pilots between NBCUniversal, agency holding companies and brands surrounding the Olympics, Super Bowl and Q1 inventory across NBCU linear and streaming properties. In March, NBCUniversal named iSpot a preferred trading currency for the 2022 Upfront season, and WarnerMedia and Paramount used iSpot in a currency pilot for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The investment will be deployed to accelerate growth and adoption of real-time, cross-platform TV ad verification, audience measurement and performance metrics for the buy and sell side. That includes scaling engineering and product development, expanding the sales and customer success footprint, continuing to enhance the currencies for the marketplace to transact on for TV and video, and acquiring complementary businesses. “We have been very impressed with iSpot’s world-class data analytics software platform and proprietary systems which have been purpose-built for the increasingly dynamic video measurement space,” said Leonard Seevers, partner and head of media investment for the Private Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “We are incredibly excited to partner with Sean and the iSpot team to drive long-term growth and value creation together.”

The new additions to its streaming library marks Vizio's continuation of “its commitment to make entertainment available to everyone,” the company said in a statement. “Following the [introduction] of ad-supported on demand content last November, the team has expanded the entertainment options at an accelerated pace to provide consumers with access to a massive free library of content that they can enjoy as a part of owning a Vizio TV," said Vizio's Vice President of Business Development Katherine Pond.

Sports Business Journal writer Terry Lefton had some interesting data about advertisers returning to nationally televised NBA games this season. Via Lefton, according to an analysis of data from iSpot.TV, the ad spend this season was $449.6 million on nationally aired NBA games, up from $209.8 million last season with 72 games. Lefton said around 112 brands spent over $1 million on national TV ads on NBA games this season — almost double what the figure was last season. These are the kind of data points that speak to a significant increase for the NBA media rights when they are up post 2024-25. We’ll see how it shakes out.

Holding companies expect to transact some individual deals with clients this year using alternative currencies involving other measurement companies like iSpot.tv and VideoAmp. Such deals are estimated to account for between 10% and 30% of total business in this year’s upfront, according to one research executive. Last month, NBCUniversal said that for the first time, it will be transacting some upfront deals on iSpot, alongside Nielsen.

iSpot shows that Warners did spend to open Dumbledore with close to $21M committed to U.S. TV Spots, versus Sony’s $8M on Father Stu. TV ad impressions for Dumbledore were 958M, with spots airing across NBC, ABC, CBS, TBS and Syfy network, during events like Men’s college basketball, Winter Olympics, NBA games and on shows like Good Morning America and Survivor.

The virtual two-day event will take place on April 19 and April 21. The first day will feature a presentation and a panel titled “Influencers are Today’s TV Networks and Publishers.” Panelists will include Dustin Goot, TikTok’s head of creator monetization; Tim Sovay, chief business development, partnership, and operations officer at CreatorIQ; Latraviette Smith-Wilson, chief marketing and equity officer at Horizon Media; among others.

Everyone really is talking more and more about the metaverse—not just Facebook parent Meta and other marketers—according to new data that Tubular Labs, the social video analytics platform, has shared with Datacenter Weekly

Interestingly, we had a little bit of a preview, because NBCUniversal actually released daily audience estimates of its Winter Olympics coverage based on its new “certified” alternative currency provider iSpot.

Advertisers returned to nationally televised NBA games in a big way this season, as the spend on those telecasts was up 114% from the COVID-shortened '20-21 season, according to an analysis of data from iSpot.TV. A full 82-game season led more brands to get in on increased advertising in '21-22 (even with increased primetime TV ad rates), translating to an estimated ad spend of $449.6M on nationally-aired NBA games, up from $209.8M last season with 72 games (that's a 14% uptick in game inventory).

Welcome to the Cheetah Digital Media Issues Series, where veteran journalist, consultant, and advisor Charlie Crowe interviews CMOs and global media directors to uncover what they see as the opportunities, challenges, and other issues surrounding the world of media and brands.

Every weekday we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. (Scroll down to watch them all.)

The NBA’s popularity with young viewers continues to attract brands. iSpot data reveals the top five ad spenders during the league’s national broadcasts…

Based on the Tubular Labs Stats, around 1.1 million YouTube Shorts videos were uploaded from 152,000 accounts within a couple of weeks after its launch in the USA. And they got more than 46.3 billion views with a 2 billion engagement rate(likes, shares, comments, etc.).

A decade later, iSpot is a key partner and resource for major media platforms and advertisers. With more than 300 employees, the company has been growing organically and through acquisitions, it’s increasingly becoming an alternative to industry stalwart Nielsen as a standard for audience measurement.

In January, NBCUniversal announced iSpot.tv as its first alternate measurement partner. Meanwhile, WarnerMedia chose three companies to partner with for its measurement tests: iSpot.tv, Comscore, and VideoAmp.

By encouraging and increasing viewership across formats, Jump Ads gives content providers a new opportunity to engage viewers beyond a single linear session with the ability to fully control and customize the user journey between platforms. This includes the ability to choose at what point of the show the ads will appear, how often they appear, and even to which app the overlay points. Vizio is currently working with additional content providers and brands on a variety of integrations, Vizio said.

Beyond ‘The Slap’: Oscars advertising by the numbers. If you’re sick of hearing about a certain slap at the Oscars, well, let’s instead take a moment to think about the annual ceremony’s impact as an ad-supported pop-cultural tentpole TV event. Here, courtesy of iSpot.tv, are some essential stats about this year’s big show…