Nielsen faces bigger competitor as Innovid buys TVSquared

Innovid is acquiring TVSquared for $160 million in a deal that combines largely complementary media measurement firms to create a bigger contender among players vying to take business from industry heavyweight Nielsen. The deal brings together Innovid, a New York-based buying platform for streaming and connected TV buys, with TVSquared, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based firm that measures linear TV in the U.S. and globally. Subscribe to Ad Age now for the latest industry news and analysis. Problems with measurement using its existing TV Ratings panel led Nielsen to lose accreditation from the Media Rating Council last year. Combined with Nielsen’s plans to replace its ratings system with Nielsen One, which incorporates smart TV and set-top box data similar to competitors, that has thrown open a once largely closed market to more competition. In the crowded field of potential competitors, TVSquared appears to enjoy a leg up on Innovid based on its ability to measure linear as well as connected TV (CTV), and its incorporation of offline sales in linking outcomes to ad exposures. That helped land it among the list of “Currency Contenders” released by NBCUniversal last year as it evaluates alternatives to Nielsen. Since Innovid is a software buying platform used by marketers to make CTV buys, that can raise some questions about its true independence as a measurement source. But Zvika Netter, CEO and co-founder of Innovid, said such concerns are unfounded. RSVP for Ad Age’s Super Bowl event on Feb. 8 at AdAge.com/InDepthSuperBowl. “We work with 40% of the top 200 brands in the U.S. to deliver and measure all their CTV advertising,” Netter said. “It is not a media company. We don't buy or sell or facilitate any media. We're purely a software company to deliver, take care of the creative and measure CTV advertising.” “We're bringing the best of CTV together with the best of measurement,” said TVSquared President Jo Kinsella. “We bring all the linear stuff. So we've got [multichannel video programming distributor] data. We've got Sky panels in the U.K. We've got Vizio. We’ve got Samba. We have all these partners.” Innovid, which went public last year, projected full-year 2021 revenue of $89 million to $90 million, up more than 30%, but has seen its stock price fall more than 50% since November. TVSquared's preliminary 2021 revenue is expected to be $20 million to $22 million, the companies announced Monday. Innovid's cash and stock purchase of TVSquared is expected to close by the end of Innovid’s fiscal second quarter.

Nielsen faces bigger competitor as Innovid buys TVSquared

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