NEW YORK—As part of an ongoing effort to improve cross-platform measurement, OpenAP has announced that the U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) has granted conditional certification to Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp.
The companies were given the conditional certification following a rigorous RFI scoring process. As part of that process, the three companies were scored to be transactable through the JIC's first stage of analysis, with full certification anticipated to be awarded in early 2024 to those who pass the data evaluation.
JIC and OpenAP said that the news marks an important milestone in their efforts to improve new cross-platform solutions and enable more competition in a multi-currency marketplace.
It could potentially also create more competition for Nielsen, which has long dominated the measurement business.
The U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) was created in January 2023 as a collaborative forum for both media buyers and video suppliers to work together to define a more sustainable model for long-form video measurement. Its initial charter at launch is executing a certification for new currencies and creating a harmonized streaming viewership dataset through OpenAP.
Nielsen was invited to participate in the process but declined.
In a joint statement, the JIC said: "We applaud the efforts of all companies who leaned in with the JIC's currency certification efforts and participated in the RFI stage. Throughout the process thus far, it is clear that -- while there is still work to be done -- we are moving closer to having more currencies that are commercially ready for scalable transactions across both buyers and sellers. We look forward to continuing to work with the companies in both the next stage of the currency data evaluation process, as well as with those who will be partnering on measurement certification next year, as we thoughtfully and collaboratively work toward ushering the industry toward a modern measurement and currency ecosystem."
In announcing the conditional certifications, the JIC also described some of its recent work.
Following the public release of the JIC's Scoring Rubric in June, a JIC subcommittee with equal representation of buyers and sellers entered a scoring process to evaluate all RFI responses from participating measurement companies. The JIC's Scoring Rubric was created to be a standardized instrument for all subcommittee members to use in scoring the RFI submissions. Companies were evaluated and graded based on the level of transactability as outlined in the rubric, with each company required to receive a score of three in all categories to receive conditional certification as a cross-platform currency. The scores were reviewed by the subcommittee on August 1, 2023, and a vote on conditional certification was taken. This vote was reviewed and approved by the full Joint Industry Committee on August 24, the JIC explained.
The JIC said that conditional certification is granted to those who are moving forward into the data evaluation stage, with the JIC's goal of issuing full certification in early 2024. Currency certification status will be granted on a two-year term spanning the calendar year. Companies will be up for recertification every two years and will be subject to further audit and evaluation within that window to maintain full certification status. Companies who receive and maintain full certification status will be granted access to the JIC Streaming Data Service set to launch in beta next year.
In addition to the currency certification program underway, the JIC will introduce a new measurement certification track in 2024 to bring additional standards and enable further innovation in cross-platform measurement solutions. This effort will complement the currency certification.
