TV measurement company iSpot today announced that it has earned its first Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation for the ability to accurately identify, verify and track national TV ad occurrences across 178 linear and broadcast networks.

The Media Rating Council has given accreditation to iSpot.tv’s core national TV occurrence data, which is at the center of the TV measurement company’s beginnings in 2012.

ISpot’s MRC accreditation of its TV ad occurrence catalog is another big step for the measurement company as it continues to establish itself as a competitor to a beleaguered Nielsen. ISpot’s system helps advertisers verify, optimize and justify ad investments, with iSpot founder and CEO Sean Muller describing it as “the unshakable foundation” for countless transaction decisions.

ISpot.tv received accreditation for its ad occurrence catalog from the Media Rating Council, the industry’s ad quality arbiter, in a move the Nielsen rival hopes will lead to broader accreditation.

Vizio’s Inscape, a provider of smart TV viewing data across the industry, is also preparing to drop Gracenote metadata for at least some customers, according to a client letter obtained by Ad Age.

The big picture: Beehiiv launched at a time when some Big Tech firms were building their own newsletter platforms. Many of those efforts from Meta and X (then Twitter) have since been sunsetted. It also competes with other newsletter-focused platforms like Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor and Sailthru along with startups like Substack, Ghost and Lede.

But here are some benchmarks to help us measure the company’s progress: According to Tubular Labs data, 759 million videos were uploaded to YouTube by 24.6 million accounts in the last 365 days.

“There is a quite distinct generational divide for local broadcast viewing at the age of 45,” according to a recent report from TVREV, a research group. “Generation X and boomers (those 45+) still cling to TV habits they developed as kids, while their kids largely reject local linear broadcast.”

The annual shopping event continues to grow as a key period in the retail calendar. Data from marketing channel Wunderkind’s Marketing Pulse (which analysed over 100.7 million shopper journeys over the BtS period across 28 August-17 September), showed online revenues jumped 24% year-on-year, as shoppers spent on school essentials, transitional autumn wear and ‘back to work’ outfits.

Vizio this summer began rolling out an updated smart TV home screen touting enhanced personalization. Whereas Amazon in the past year has tweaked the user interface for both Prime Video and Fire TV.

“The U.S. Joint Industry Committee has conditionally certified Comscore, iSpot.tv and VideoAmp for audience measurement, anointing what industry had already identified as the leading contenders to cut into Nielsen’s dominance in TV and cross-platform measurement,” Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports.

Bhatia had recently been deeply involved with a new committee backed by many of the biggest U.S. media companies that aims to gain industry certification of new types of audience-measuring technology. This committee, backed by Fox, NBCU, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global and TelevisaUnivsion. recently gave early nods to technology from Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot, three start-ups that have worked in recent years to challenge Nielsen’s status as the media industry’s primary means of audience tabulation.

Have you heard the news? Chances are Millennials and Gen Zers have, according to a new survey by Publisher’s Clearing House, EShap and TVRev that was recently released. The survey deals with how people choose to interact with broadcast TV, and which groups are more likely to engage with the medium.

In the ever-evolving landscape of marketing, personalization has become paramount. To deliver personalized experiences, understanding your customers is crucial. One vital aspect to consider when building meaningful relationships is the generation to which your customers belong. Megan Fletcher, VP of Customer Marketing at Marigold, analyzed the 2023 U.S. Consumer Trends Report (CTI), providing valuable insights for public relations leaders by emphasizing the diverse expectations and preferences across generations.

Revry, the first global LGBTQ+ streaming service, is proud to announce the return of the annual Queer X Awards on October 11, 2023, to mark National Coming Out Day. Presented by Discover, this prestigious event recognizes and honors outstanding individuals and allies who have made an impact. Since its inception in 2016, the Queer X Awards have been a symbol of inclusivity, applauding the achievements of those who have shaped the LGBTQ+ landscape.

Every weekday we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new commercials tracked by TV measurement company iSpot.tv.

Lexus leaps into iSpot.tv’s ranking of most-seen auto ads with a commercial that received 341.7 million national TV ad impressions from Sept. 11-17. The spot highlights the RX plug-in hybrid model’s ability to use “electric for short trips, gas for long.” ESPN’s 74.3 million impressions accounted for nearly 22% of the ad’s total impressions; other top networks included Bravo (27.3 million) and Food Network (25.1 million). College football (58.9 million impressions) generated over five times more impressions for the ad than the No.2 program (First Take, 10.6 million).

DraftKings and FanDuel also ranked highly according to data compiled by iSpot TV, a real-time provider of TV ad data. During the first two weeks of the NFL season, sportsbook brands aired 11,300 ads on national linear TV, with 2.64 billion TV ad impressions across national linear, streaming, and local TV combined. Ad impressions typically quantify the number of times a piece of content is seen.

The US broadcaster-backed currency joint industry committee (JIC) has granted “conditional certification” to Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot. The JIC evaluated the measurement firms’ levels of transparency and access to census-level data. Early next year, the JIC will decide which contenders receive full certification as currencies. The certified companies will have access to the JIC’s streaming data product, including first-party data from Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal.