U.S. Joint Industry Committee re-certifies Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp for 2026-2028 term, publishes new report to increase currency transparency. Sep 22, 2026, 08:30 ET New "How a Number Is Made" report provides buyers and sellers with a common framework for understanding how certified currencies construct audience estimates NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - The U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) today announced that Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp have each been re-certified as national currencies for the 2026-2028 term, following the completion of the JIC's most comprehensive currency evaluation to date. All three providers met the JIC's baseline threshold for transactability across Total Households, Advanced Audiences and Personified Demographics. The evaluation was conducted by data, analytics and research leaders representing media agencies, national TV publishers and independent consultants, with results reviewed by the JIC's Measurement Subcommittee and approved by a majority vote of the Full Committee. Alongside the certification results, the JIC has published "How a Number Is Made," a new report providing greater transparency into how each certified provider constructs its audience estimates, from how viewing is observed and attributed to how audiences are projected, personified and ultimately reported as a currency. A Rigorous Evaluation Built By and For the Industry JIC Currency Certification is granted on a two-year term and evaluates whether measurement providers meet buyer- and seller-defined requirements for transactional readiness. The 2026-2028 evaluation included 39 Data Evaluation Questions and 672 tests across transaction types and estimation methods, analyzing more than 150 million telecast observations across 680+ networks to assess data completeness, methodology, stability and transparency. Building on prior certification cycles and JIC member feedback, the evaluation expanded testing of stability, sports and long-tail programming to assess whether currency data performs consistently and predictably across a wider range of programming and over time. Bringing Greater Transparency to an Evolving Currency Marketplace More than two years of hands-on currency evaluation has reinforced one of the market's most consistent needs: understanding not only whether a currency is transactable, but transparency into how the number itself is made. The JIC's new report examines the building blocks that underpin modern TV measurement and translates complex methodologies into a common, plain-language framework, allowing buyers and sellers to better understand and evaluate the approaches used by Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp. A summarized report is available to the industry here: "How a Number Is Made," with the full analysis provided to JIC Member organizations. "The JIC has spent the past several years bringing buyers and sellers together to evaluate the transactional readiness of new currencies. As the market has matured, the JIC's work is evolving with it, providing greater transparency into methodology and stability so the industry has the clarity and confidence to embrace choice and continue innovating. The JIC remains an important forum for buyers and sellers to come together, move with agility and push the industry toward greater clarity and transparency as measurement continues to advance," said Brittany Slattery, OpenAP chief marketing officer and vice president of the JIC. Building on Currency Certification The completion of this certification cycle also marks an important next chapter for the JIC. Through the certification process, buyers and sellers have established a standing forum for independently evaluating currencies. The JIC will continue its certification work while applying that collaborative model to currency-adjacent areas where greater industry alignment and shared standards can reduce friction for buyers and sellers and scale innovation. This includes shared direction for how changes to currencies are introduced, communicated and operationalized, as well as emerging approaches to outcomes measurement. Additional details will be shared in the coming months. ABOUT THE U.S. JOINT INDUSTRY COMMITTEE Formed in January 2023, the U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) brings together media buyers and video publishers to create greater transparency, confidence and interoperability across the premium video marketplace. Through collaborative standards, independent currency evaluation and shared data initiatives, the JIC works to establish common expectations that make measurement and currency solutions more transparent and transactable for buyers and sellers. SOURCE U.S. Joint Industry Committee

What to look for when shopping for a media planning tool. Choosing the right media planning software is a major decision for any agency. The platform you select will influence how efficiently your team builds plans, manages budgets, coordinates buys, analyzes performance, and ultimately serves clients. But with so many platforms promising to simplify media planning, how do you know what actually matters? The right media planning technology should do more than replace a spreadsheet. It should make your entire workflow more connected, give your team better visibility, reduce manual work, and provide the tools needed to make smarter media decisions. For agencies evaluating their options, here are the most important features to look for, and how GaleForceMedia delivers them. 1. Look for an intuitive, easy-to-use platform. The best software shouldn't require your team to spend months learning how to use it. When evaluating media planning technology, look for an intuitive interface that allows planners to find information quickly, move between tasks efficiently, and manage campaigns without constantly navigating complicated modules. GaleForceMedia was built by media buyers for media buyers, with a modern, browser-based interface designed around the way agencies actually work. Teams can access their campaigns online without downloading traditional desktop software, making it easy to work from virtually anywhere. A client may need a combination of television, radio, digital, streaming, print, out-of-home, and other media. If your software requires separate systems or worksheets for each channel, your planning process can quickly become fragmented. Strong media planning technology should give you the ability to manage multiple media types within one platform. GaleForceMedia supports planning and buying across traditional and digital media, giving agencies a centralized environment for managing campaigns. Its platform can also accommodate multiple markets and media types within a worksheet, helping planners maintain a more complete view of a client's strategy. 3. Look for strong ratings and audience data integrations. When comparing media planning technology, agencies should look for integrations with the data sources they already depend on. GaleForceMedia integrates with industry-leading providers including Nielsen and Comscore, allowing planners to incorporate ratings and audience information into their planning process. This is particularly valuable for agencies managing television and radio campaigns where reach, frequency, audience composition, and ratings data can play an important role in determining where budgets should be allocated. 4. Prioritize Budget management and flexibility. Your media planning software needs to accommodate market changes without forcing your team to rebuild everything from scratch. GaleForceMedia provides tools for managing campaigns, orders, budgets, and multiple versions of worksheets. Agencies can create variations of plans, replicate buys, and manage multiple markets and media within the platform. Planning shouldn't exist in a silo from buying. The strongest media planning technology connects the initial strategy to actual campaign execution. GaleForceMedia combines media planning and buying in one platform, helping agencies move from developing a strategy to executing the buy without unnecessary duplication. That connected workflow can save significant time while reducing opportunities for manual errors. 6. Don't overlook Attribution and analytics. Agencies also need to understand what happened after a campaign has launched. Look for software that can connect planning and buying with meaningful performance data. GaleForceMedia's Attribution Insights technology helps connect broadcast and radio schedules with website performance, allowing agencies to evaluate relationships between individual spots, timing, spend, website traffic, conversions, and other outcomes. Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly important part of modern media management. When evaluating media planning technology, agencies should consider whether the platform is prepared to incorporate AI into planning and optimization. GaleForceMedia includes GAiL, its proprietary AI-assisted media planning tool. GAiL is designed to help agencies make data-driven decisions and optimize media buys for greater efficiency and effectiveness. 8. Make sure support is part of the package. Before selecting a platform, make sure training is included, customer support is readily available, and that customer feedback is heard and valued. GaleForce Digital provides onboarding, training, ongoing assistance, and continued software updates based on customer requests. That means your agency isn't simply purchasing software and being left to figure it out. You're gaining a technology partner that understands the media buying business. There are plenty of platforms that can help with one part of media planning. The challenge is finding one that can support the entire process. GaleForceMedia brings together the features agencies need to plan, buy, manage, measure, and optimize media in one centralized platform. With GaleForceMedia, agencies get: * Intuitive, browser-based software * Multi-channel media planning and buying * Top industry integrations * AI-assisted planning through GAiL * Attribution Insights * Budget and campaign management * Import capabilities for avails, orders, and buys * Reporting and analytics * Real-time collaboration * Dedicated training and support And because GaleForceMedia is designed specifically for media professionals, its functionality is built around the real-world challenges agencies face every day. Choose media planning technology built for the way agencies work. Shopping for software shouldn't be about finding the platform with the longest feature list. It's about finding the technology that makes your agency more efficient, gives your team better information, and helps you deliver more value to clients. For agencies looking to modernize their workflow, reduce reliance on spreadsheets, improve visibility, and prepare for the future of media, GaleForceMedia is a comprehensive solution built around the way today's media professionals actually work. Ready to see what better media planning looks like? Request a GaleForceMedia demo today and discover why agencies are turning to smarter technology to plan, buy, measure, and optimize media more efficiently.

Comscore launches human-powered AI practice, draws from massive opt-in panel. At a time when the marketing industry seems transfixed on the "visibility" their brands have with AI chatbots - and the sources they draw from - a leading consumer researcher is turning the tables to understand how consumer behavior is changing based on how they use AI. And they're using people to do it - lots of them. In a major repositioning of its burgeoning AI analytics business, Comscore this morning unveiled plans to accelerate insights drawn from the 1 million-plus people opting into its digital media-measurement panel. The panel utilizes software meter technology to track every conceivable keystroke behavior the panelists make on desktop and mobile media that now includes the major LLM chatbots. This enables Comscore analysts to see not just what the the bots are drawing from and rendering, but how people prompt them, the responses they receive, and how they behave as a result of it. To date, Comscore has been producing custom analysis and a couple of generalized reports based on the new "AI-triggered" customer-journey behaviors. But it already is envisioning a more robust set of standardized studies, reports and even a new syndicated research service that would be akin to what Comscore and its peers have traditionally provided to brands, agencies and media to understand how people use conventional digital and analogue media, and how their consumer behaviors evolve because of it. "Think about it - a few years back if someone wanted to find something their customer journey was pretty predictable: they went on search, visited a few websites, read some reviews and eventually bought something. Today, consumers are no longer searching, they're asking. And that simple change is probably the biggest disruption in marketing since search itself," explains Comscore Chief Analytics and Technology Officer Smriti Sharma, who is leading the new initiative. "It's not a search. It's a conversation, and that's how marketing is now capturing intent," she continues, explaining that unlike conventional GEO and brand visibility analytics, Comscore's permission-based panel enables it to see the actual conversations consumers are having with their chatbots, the iterations of their prompts, the replies, recommendations and source links the bots return, and how their customer journey proceeds to other digital destinations because of it. Sharma says it has been a work in progress, beginning with custom analytics requests from Comscore customers, but it already has produced a couple of trend reports, including one on the travel and lodging category Comscore published earlier this year. The report contains many expected insights about the rapidly expanding adoption and usage of AI chatbots, but it also reveals some new insights about how AI is leading directly to conversions - consumers making immediate "AI-triggered" purchase decisions because of a chatbot's recommendations. For example, the chart above reveals a threefold increase in the percentage of consumers in its panel making travel-related lodging purchases over a two year period through December 2025. More recent data provided to MediaPost by Comscore reveals the impact sponsored ads are influencing the AI-trigger effect in the category, expanding four-fold in just three recent months (see below). Sharma concedes that it is still early days in the evolution of Comscore's AI marketing intelligence practice, but unlike much of the marketing research industry's focus on AI visibility rankers, the utilization of AI itself to generate "synthetic" respondent data and/or to conduct simulations of consumer behavior and customer journey outcomes, the data Comscore is mining is based on empirical behavioral data coming from actual people. "It's the behavioral measurement of how actual people are using AI. That's the difference," Sharma asserts. While Comscore's digital consumer panel fluctuates over time, running as high as 2 million opted-in users, Sharma says that for practical purposes the respondent base for its AI marketing intelligence analytics is running between 500,000 and 1 million users currently. Importantly, Comscore gets to see every keystroke and associated behavior of all of those respondents - for a variety of digital media - including their interactions with AI chatbots, and presumably other iterations of AI technology into the future. That likely will include personal AI agents as the technology evolves into what is known as A2A - or agent-to-agent - marketing in which a consumer's agent interacts directly with a brand's agent, serving as proxies for both ends of a symmetrical AI-powered consumer marketplace. In terms of current behaviors, Sharma estimates that as much as a third of Comscore's panel are utilizing AI chatbots to make brand-related decisions on a daily basis. To date, the primary area of Comscore's focus has been trying to understand the "prompt analysis," which includes both the prompt and the reply, as well as what people do because of that conversation. "It's something only AI creates. We don't just know what the consumer will find. We also know what they have asked." The next major area of focus is how paid advertising in the form of sponsored ads and promos inside chatbots, as well as their associated source links, is impacting those conversations, as well as the ultimate customer journey. "If you think about it, search became ads, social became ads, and now AI is becoming ads, too," she notes. While Comscore's AI marketing intelligence analytics expansion ultimately is expected to manifest into some type of syndicated service, the immediate goal is to continue generating custom analytics for customers and periodic category reports to help brands and agencies better understand the rapidly changing role and impact of AI chatbots, sponsored ads, agents and other iterations on overall media strategy. "This is becoming another input for media planning," she predicts.