Inscape extends OTA viewership data to include local TV

Inscape Develops Smart TV Tuner Technology That Brings Big Data To Local Landscape

Inscape, a leading provider of currency-grade smart TV data from millions of opted-in VIZIO TVs, today announced they are expanding coverage of local stations by tapping directly into tuners built into Smart TVs in every local US TV market. This unprecedented scale will significantly increase Inscape’s coverage to thousands of local stations. In doing so, local television will now finally boast a big data source for over-the-air viewership spanning all stations and markets and putting it on the same playing field as national stations.

Starting this month, Inscape’s Tuner Data will be available to participating clients and comes at a pivotal moment for marketers and media sellers alike. Measuring viewers and finding audience insights from local Over-the-Air (OTA) TV signals has remained a major challenge and a blind spot for the industry. Inscape’s Tuner Data will fill this need by creating an industry-wide solution for the benefit of the local TV industry — regardless of market size.

“For Comscore, having multiple sources of data capture is a key component of our TV measurement approach, which spans across all 210 local markets. Incorporating Smart TV Tuner Data from Inscape gives Comscore additional views into local station viewing behaviors, enabling us to better serve our clients with the most precise measurement,” said David Algranati, Chief Innovation Officer, Comscore.

“By unlocking the potential of local TV in this game-changing way and bringing the full power of big data to OTA signals, clients and the industry as a whole will now have a critical entrypoint to previously unfeasible attribution of local TV content,” said Charbel Makhoul, Vice President of Product Management, Data Science and Analytics at VIZIO/Inscape.

“We’re excited that Inscape is bringing the scale and representativeness from its 22+ million opt-in Smart TV homes to local,” said Josh Chasin, former Chief Measurability Officer, VideoAmp. “In doing so, the entire local marketplace will now have access to the highest fidelity data in order to capitalize on the growth potential that CTV brings to the space. Local TV, and especially over the air (OTA) digital broadcast, is one of the most robust spaces in the video ecosystem. We’re thrilled that Inscape is proactively supporting the measurement of this vital piece of the video pie.”

Specifically, while Inscape’s award-winning ACR technology is always running to identify content and commercials on the TV screen, new Tuner Data will layer on additional data points collected directly from built-in televisions tuners to supplement exposure signals for smaller markets. With the additional deterministic data from Smart TV tuners, Inscape Tuner Data is a major step in helping underpin local TV markets across the U.S. and a way to accurately capture the audiences of often smaller subnets.

Depending on their industry, participating partners will be able to use Inscape Tuner Data to drive specific uses, such as: Optimizing local ad spend with granular device-level data; enriching first-party data to help content strategy and analyzing audiences holistically across national and local TV markets in a singular feed.

As cord cutting continues across the U.S 18% of TV households still report having a digital antenna and watch TV over the air. Considering that local TV over-the-air advertising revenue in 2023 was $15.4 billion and is expected to increase to $18.8 billion in the 2024 election year (a 3.4% increase), it’s mission critical that the local TV industry have the most comprehensive datasets in order to drive budget optimization, shape effective business strategies and maximize inventory. By giving local media buyers and sellers expanded coverage in the local markets – which help power enhanced measurement capabilities – Inscape is doing just that.