Walmart’s intention to buy TV maker Vizio, the largest supplier of automatic content-recognition data in the industry, has sources wondering whether this precious ACR data will be available under the new ownership.
In recent years, a bevy of upstart ad-tech firms sprung up to solve the challenge of measuring audiences in streaming TV environments. Many of these companies have relied on data from Vizio to help advertisers draw insights and develop new currencies for the connected TV age.
“Nobody is supporting as much of the ecosystem as Vizio, which is what makes it valuable,” said Dave Morgan, CEO of TV buying firm Simulmedia.
ACR data identifies what shows and ads are playing on smart TVs, which is extremely difficult to track in the fragmented world of streaming television. Measurement firms can turn this information into viewership data and link it back to audiences for attribution purposes.
While ACR data is valuable, many smart TV manufacturers have been reluctant to sell it, preferring to keep the information to sell to their own advertisers. While some TV manufacturers have struck limited deals with measurement firms to access their ACR data, none has made the signals more widely available than Vizio.
“Vizio has the best data,” said Yan Liu, CEO of TVision, a panel-based measurement firm that does not rely on ACR data but works with many firms that do. “Anyone can pay and buy, and it’s the cleanest and best product.”
As buyers anxiously wait for a clear and consistent way of tracking how many people watch their ads on streaming TV, the measurement industry relies on a limited and precarious set of signals to get the job done.
Vizio and Walmart did not respond to requests for comment.
ACR is becoming increasingly limited
Given that ACR data is a precious resource, ad-tech firms have been moving swiftly to gather as much for themselves as possible.
In 2021, Roku acquired ACR tech from Nielsen. Although Nielsen had previously licensed this data to other firms, the data is now only available for Nielsen and Roku, AdExchanger reported at the time and several sources corroborated. A Nielsen spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on where it licenses its data.
