iSpot Buys Out of Home TV Analytics Firm Tunity

In the US, real-time television ad measurement company iSpot.tv has acquired TV viewing solutions and analytics company Tunity, which measures viewing behavior in bars, restaurants, gyms, transportation hubs and other public spaces. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

New York City and Tel Aviv-based Tunity models viewing behavior from hundreds of thousands of US individuals, estimating Out of Home (OOH) audience for upwards of 100 million hours per day. The firm's app allows users to hear live audio from muted televisions directly on their mobile devices. Through patented deep learning and computer vision technology, the company is able to identify a live video stream and its exact timing, syncing the audio with the user's mobile device.

Following the acquisition, Tunity will continue to be led by founder Yaniv Davidson (pictured). In addition Paul Lindstrom, Tunity Head of Research and Analytics, will retain his role at iSpot, along with a core group of engineers. The latest acquisition is iSpot's third in fourteen months, with the others being Ace Metrix, the real-time system for measuring brand impact, and DRMetrix, which offers a measurement system for monitoring all TV ad formats and executions, including those delivered through digital program insertion (DPI) ad breaks.

Sean Muller, CEO and founder of iSpot, comments: 'The existing ratings models have proven to woefully misrepresent viewership in public spaces, which has an impact on the business models for the buy and sell side. iSpot's acquisition of Tunity will enable us to meet a massive demand in the marketplace with a more unified, independent measurement system that tracks audience consumption of ads and programming on a second-by-second basis, across platforms and viewing experiences'.

Web sites: www.ispot.tv and www.tunity.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.