iSpot Buys 605 in Bid for TV-Measurement Market Edge
variety.comBrian Steinberg Senior TV Editor In a growing market for technology that measures TV audiences, sometimes it helps to extend your yardstick iSpot.tv, one of a number of ad-tech upstarts vying to challenge Nielsen in the tabulation of media viewership, is acquiring 605, a company that specializes in assigning “attribution,” or tracing how exposure to a specific commercial affects an actual sale.
The company being acquired, 605, was launched in part by Kristin Dolan, currently the CEO of AMC Networks. Dolan Family Ventures, an entity that makes strategic investments on behalf of Dolan and her husband, James Dolan, who is also the lead of the family that controls AMC and sibling company MSG Networks, will retain a minority stake in iSpot as part of the deal.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is the latest financial deal built around measurement of media audiences, an increasingly critical assignment as the people who once watched linear TV spread out around dozens of new viewing possibilities.
Nielsen was purchased in 2022 by a private-equity consortium for $16 billion. Executives at iSpot hope the deal will bolster that company’s efforts to measure audiences no matter what venue they may choose.
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