Inscape and Locality Partner to Provide Unified Linear TV and Streaming Measurement for Advertisers

The landscape of television advertising is undergoing a fundamental transformation as audience behavior shifts away from traditional broadcast toward fragmented streaming ecosystems. To address the resulting complexities in campaign measurement, data and measurement company Inscape and local video advertising provider Locality have announced a strategic partnership. This collaboration aims to provide marketers with a unified, cross-platform view of both linear television and streaming inventory, facilitating more precise measurement for national and local audiences. By integrating Inscape’s robust viewership data with Locality’s premium local video supply, the companies intend to offer a solution for calculating incremental reach—a critical metric for brands attempting to bridge the gap between legacy broadcast and Connected TV (CTV) environments.

The Evolution of TV Measurement

For decades, linear television measurement was the gold standard of advertising efficacy, dominated by panel-based models that provided a reliable, if limited, understanding of viewership. However, the rise of the digital age, accelerated by the mass adoption of smart TVs and streaming services, has rendered traditional measurement methods increasingly insufficient. Modern consumers move fluidly between broadcast networks, cable channels, and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services.

This behavioral shift has created a "measurement gap" where advertisers struggle to understand the true reach of their campaigns. If a brand runs a national commercial on a local broadcast affiliate and simultaneously places an ad on a streaming app, tracking whether those impressions hit the same households—or reach new ones—has historically been an exercise in estimation rather than precision. The partnership between Inscape, a subsidiary of Vizio, and Locality is a direct response to the industry’s demand for "de-duplicated" reach data, allowing advertisers to see the total unique audience across all platforms.

Strategic Objectives and Operational Scope

The core of this partnership rests on the integration of Inscape’s granular viewership data with Locality’s extensive local market footprint. Inscape, which draws data from millions of Vizio smart TVs, provides second-by-second viewing information that reflects real-world habits. By applying this dataset to Locality’s inventory—which encompasses a massive array of local broadcast and streaming spots—the collaboration enables marketers to perform cross-platform planning at both the brand and individual market levels.

This level of detail is significant because local advertising remains a cornerstone of the broader $87 billion television ad market. While national campaigns often capture the headlines, the efficacy of local ad spend is frequently what dictates the bottom-line success of retail, automotive, and regional service brands. By aligning these datasets, Locality and Inscape aim to provide a "single-source" view that treats linear and streaming as a single, cohesive medium rather than siloed channels.

Official Perspectives on the Collaboration

Industry leadership has framed this partnership as a necessary evolution for the advertising ecosystem. Keith Kazerman, the president of streaming at Locality, highlighted the unique positioning this brings to the company’s portfolio. "Combining our access to premium local video at unduplicated scale with Inscape’s comprehensive local-level viewership data uniquely positions Locality to understand how ad campaigns perform across both linear and streaming distribution," Kazerman stated. He emphasized that the partnership is designed to enhance the ability to showcase unique reach, providing advertisers with clear insights into how consumers interact with inventory in specific, optimal markets.

From the data provider’s perspective, the emphasis is on the integration of habits and content. Ken Norcross, VP of data licensing and strategy at Vizio/Inscape, noted the significance of the partnership for the wider industry. "The solution this partnership brings to the $87 billion ad industry is access to unified data across locally targeted linear and streaming, driving operational and budgetary efficiencies," Norcross observed. He further added that the goal is to provide a "single-source solution that focuses on the content and the commercials and the habits and behaviors within the TV viewing experience, cohesively."

Contextualizing the Market Shift

To understand why this partnership is timely, one must look at the trajectory of the television industry over the past five years. In 2019, the distinction between "cord-cutting" and "cord-stacking" was the primary debate in media circles. Today, that debate has been replaced by the technical challenge of managing fragmented ad buys.

According to recent industry reports, CTV ad spending in the United States is projected to continue its double-digit growth, eventually capturing a significant share of the total video advertising pie. As budgets shift, the "incremental reach" metric has become the most sought-after data point in media planning. Advertisers are no longer satisfied with knowing how many people saw a commercial on a specific channel; they need to know if the streaming ad reached a household that was missed by the linear broadcast.

The Inscape-Locality alliance provides the technical plumbing to answer this question. By mapping household IDs across both linear and streaming environments using Inscape’s glass-level data, Locality can offer its clients a much more efficient allocation of media dollars. This helps prevent over-frequency—the phenomenon where a viewer is bombarded with the same ad too many times across different platforms—thereby saving costs and improving the overall consumer viewing experience.

Chronology of Data Integration

The road to this partnership has been marked by the maturation of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology.

• Early 2010s: ACR technology begins to emerge as a tool for identifying content, but it lacks the scale required for national measurement.
• 2018–2020: Vizio and Inscape solidify their position as leaders in the ACR space, providing massive, persistent datasets that reflect the actual viewing habits of millions of households.
• 2022: The industry begins to aggressively move toward the "currency" phase, where advertisers demand that ACR data be used as a legitimate alternative or supplement to traditional panel-based ratings.
• 2024: The partnership between Inscape and Locality represents the current stage of this evolution, where the focus has moved from merely tracking content to optimizing the cross-platform media buy itself.

Analysis: Implications for the Advertising Industry

The implications of this collaboration are twofold: one for the advertisers, and one for the television networks.

For advertisers, the immediate benefit is budgetary efficiency. In a tightening economic environment, marketing departments are under immense pressure to prove the ROI of every dollar spent. By reducing the waste associated with overlapping audiences between linear and streaming, brands can extend the reach of their campaigns without increasing their total expenditure. This is a powerful selling point for Locality, which serves as an intermediary between content owners and national brands.

For television networks, the partnership highlights the ongoing pressure to demonstrate value. As streaming platforms become more data-rich, traditional broadcasters are forced to modernize their data capabilities to remain competitive. By partnering with companies like Inscape, broadcast groups and local stations can provide the same level of accountability that digital-first platforms have offered for years.

However, the industry still faces hurdles. Data privacy regulations, such as the CCPA and various state-level privacy laws, require that all such measurement be conducted in a privacy-compliant manner. Both Inscape and Locality have emphasized that their data practices are built around aggregated, anonymized insights, ensuring that individual household viewing habits remain protected while still providing actionable intelligence for marketers.

Looking Toward the Future

As the television industry continues to evolve, the distinction between "linear" and "streaming" will likely become increasingly blurred. Future advancements will likely involve the integration of deterministic purchase data, where advertisers can tie viewing habits directly to retail sales in specific geographic areas. The partnership between Inscape and Locality acts as a foundational step toward this goal. By creating a unified, trustworthy dataset for local markets, they are helping to set the standard for how the next generation of television advertising will be bought, sold, and measured.

As market demand for transparency and accountability grows, the role of ACR-based measurement will likely become even more central to the media-buying process. The success of this collaboration will serve as a bellwether for how effectively the industry can transition from traditional broadcast models to a holistic, screen-agnostic approach to advertising. Ultimately, for the brands and agencies navigating this transition, the ability to see a complete, unduplicated picture of their audience is not just a competitive advantage—it is a requirement for survival in a multi-platform media world.