comScore, Inc. (SCOR, Financial) recently closed on a merger with Rentrak, a video measurement company with the largest pool of set top box data for TV viewing. The combined company is building products that will allow advertisers and media companies to more accurately measure consumption across devices and channels. In a world where the average U.S. household has more than 8 connected devices, demand for a total media measurement product is extreme. We expect comScore to leverage its big data expertise on digital combined with mobile and TV panels to build a total audience product that is well accepted with advertisers, while being more reasonably priced than Nielsen’s potential competitive solution. We expect that recent partnerships with Adobe and Facebook, along with the work the company is doing on building a large mobile router panel, should differentiate their products in the marketplace. As media fragmentation continues across new and emerging digital formats, we expect ComScore to build a substantially larger measurement and attribution business going forward.
From Baron Opportunity Fund first quarter 2016 commentary.
