The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) is launching a study on how to improve use of smart TV automatic content recognition (ACR) data in TV measurement solutions.

Smart TV data -- which captures second-by-second viewer data in tens of millions of U.S. households -- is already used as an input in TV syndicated advertising and content measurement, but there is limited standardization, content identification reference libraries are rarely comprehensive, and measurement vendors have to determine how to deal with unidentified or unmatched fingerprints, points out Jon Watts, CIMM’s managing director.

The research aims to explore ways to address those issues and enhance smart TV data use in open watermarking solutions, metadata standardization and other applications.

“If we can work to keep these dataflows as pure, complete and accessible as possible, the ecosystem can better quantify video consumption across linear and digital applications," stated media measurement consultant Caroline Horner, who will lead the study.

Horner will work with Jonathan Steuer of Anonymous Media Research, Bill Harvey and Tom Morgan, MediaD.tv. and a project steering group comprising CIMM members Howard Shimmel, Janus Strategy & Insights; Brian West, NBCUniversal Media; Helen Katz, Publicis Media; and Albert Lau, Omnicom Media Group.