The U.S. Joint Industry Committee announced the scoring criteria for its process to certify measurement companies as transactable currencies in media deals, host organization OpenAP announced at a Cannes Lions event today. This is the next step in the JIC’s goal of approving Nielsen-alternative currencies for standard use in the 2024 upfronts. 

The JIC will rate each participating measurement company—which includes Comscore, Innovid, iSpot.tv, SambaTV, VideoAmp, and 605 at the time of writing—on a scale of 1 to 4, with four representing an offering that meets the majority of criteria. The scores will be determined by its list of requirements, whose level of importance was decided on by a subcommittee of buy- and sell-side representatives. The readiness of currency solutions will be rated on the following weighted criteria:

• Transparency is weighted the highest at 12.7% and requires the currency partner to provide several key disclosures and outline approaches around the accuracy, quality and processes/methods used to deliver on audience estimates, universe estimates and data collection.
• Privacy (12.3%), requires that currency data is compliant with privacy policies. 
• Cross platform (12.1%), requires a currency solution to accurately capture and report exact ad placement second by second as well as the aggregate average commercial minute. 
• Interoperability (11.9%), requires an interoperable infrastructure that includes data delivery to clients and third parties using standardized APIs, server to server and/or data clean rooms. 
• Big data (11.6%), requires a representative weighted and projected dataset where the use of large scale transactional datasets unified across platforms underpins the capture of unduplicated ad exposure impressions, frequency, and reach. 
• Cross media transparency (10.4%), requires the currency partner to provide at least two years of historical data for forecasting purposes only.
• Planning and optimization (9.5%), requires the currency partner to enable their currency data to fuel first- or third- party planning, optimization and research systems, inclusive of third-party ad servers and programmatic buying platforms and other DSPs.
• Governance carries the least weight at 8.5% and requires the currency partner to be in the process of or actively seeking accreditation via a third-party audit.

The subcommittee included representation from media companies A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Fox, Hallmark Media, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Roku, TelevisaUnivision and Warner Bros Discovery; media agencies Dentsu, GroupM, Horizon Media, IPG Mediabrands, Publicis Media, Omnicom Media Group and RPA; and industry organizations OpenAP and the VAB.

The participating measurement companies were also given the rubric with at least two weeks to provide feedback.

“The need for standardization in cross-platform measurement has been the catalyst for both buyers and sellers to work together to create a modern measurement ecosystem that captures media behavior of today’s consumer,” said Helen Katz, executive VP of research at Publicis Media, in a statement. “We have applied considerable rigor and thoughtfulness into designing a robust scoring rubric that will serve as the foundation to allow us to determine currency readiness for transaction at scale, and we’re pleased to give the industry transparency into our progress.”

Also read: Nielsen's absence felt at inaugural JIC event

The JIC, formed earlier this year to create standards for alternative currencies, released criteria for certification in March as it called for measurement companies to participate in its process.

While a large portion of the media industry has convened around the JIC, its efforts have met resistance from some significant outliers—namely Nielsen. In response to the JIC’s RFI to measurement companies, the longtime default currency provider’s CEO of global audience measurement Karthik Rao penned a letter refusing to join in.

Rao’s primary hesitancies included an assumed bias for big data over panel data (which Nielsen has historically dealt in), antitrust concerns and a lack of transparency into the scoring process—all of which OpenAP has since rebutted on behalf of the JIC.

Nielsen’s Rao said he sees the release of the certification criteria and scoring system as positive and in line with some of what he’s asked from the group. Though he had not yet seen the document as of Wednesday morning, he had been told it was coming. And despite Nielsen’s reservations about the process to date, a team of Nielsen representatives, not including Rao, attended today’s JIC event in Cannes. 

One point of contention in the JIC’s certification is its relationship with accreditation from the Media Rating Council. A criteria in the committee’s rubric now calls for measurement providers to be in the process of obtaining or pursuing accreditation from third-party auditors, such as the MRC.

The JIC will begin grading the measurement companies’ submissions in July, followed by a data evaluation process for the companies deemed transactable. The JIC will then conduct a vote by the full committee to determine which measurement companies will receive certification for the 2024 broadcast year.

Streaming Data Service

The JIC also provided a roadmap for its Streaming Data Service in Cannes. The second major push for the committee outside of its currency certification, is meant to aggregate the participating publishers’ data clean rooms, which the JIC calls a Federated Data Clean Room. The service will allow advertisers to access the converged first-party data in a privacy-compliant manner for media planning and strategy.

According to the JIC, all participating media companies’ base-level viewership data is anticipated to be incorporated into the Streaming Data Service by the 2024 broadcast year.

A source with knowledge of the service told Ad Age that data onboarding for it has already begun, with over half of participating publishers already accounted for.