This week, we announced that we’ve entered into an agreement to acquire Gracenote—the industry’s largest provider of media and entertainment metadata.
We’re excited to welcome Gracenote into the Nielsen family. The company’s global database and technology solutions underpin the programming guides and personalized user experience for major video, music, audio and sports content. The industry standard for automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, Gracenote helps consumers to discover and engage with relevant, personalized content across platforms—from the smart TVs in their living rooms to the smartphones in their hands and the streaming music in their cars.
As the global leader in audience measurement for over 90 years, our history and transformation has been driven by innovation. With this acquisition of Gracenote, we are creating an industry-leading metadata and measurement business well-positioned to serve clients’ evolving needs as the market shifts towards greater personalization.
The acquisition extends the Nielsen footprint with major clients through Gracenote’s global database and technology solutions, which power the discovery and recommendation engines used by world’s largest television, music and automotive companies. By connecting Gracenote’s data and technology solutions into our measurement framework, we gain the ability to provide clients with deeper insights on consumer behavior and offer an unprecedented view of audience engagement from discovery to consumption.
As part of the Nielsen Total Audience measurement framework, Gracenote’s intelligent metadata will help our clients find the right customers and optimize campaigns as well as media content in real time. Additionally, with a Nielsen presence in more than 100 countries, our global reach and position as the leader in audience measurement and intelligence will further amplify Gracenote’s long-term client relationships across TV, music, sports and auto.
“Gracenote’s metadata and recognition technology fuels the interfaces of the major streaming video, music and in-car infotainment systems that consumers engage with everyday. This acquisition provides Nielsen with a significant asset in our mission of measuring and understanding consumer behavior,” said Karthik Rao, President, Expanded Verticals at Nielsen.
“For the past decade, Gracenote has connected millions of people everyday to the TV shows, sports, movies and music they love, making digital entertainment more accessible and discoverable,” said John Batter, Chief Executive Officer at Gracenote. “We are excited for the opportunity to take the next step with Nielsen and expand our global reach by continuing to deliver innovative, insights-based solutions to clients.”
The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2017.
