Countering early reports of low ratings from Nielsen, Nexstar Media and its The CW network said that more than 3.2 million people watched its first LIV Golf League event.

The CW used data from measurement company iSpot along with internal CW and LIV Golf digital data to come up with a figure for viewing across all platforms.

UPDATED: Using data from iSpotTV along with internal CW and LIV results, CW says LIV’s opening weekend at Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course in Mexico averaged more than 3.2 million total viewers across all linear and digital platforms from February 24-26.

Day one of the tourney streamed on the CW app. Days two and three aired on affiliates, as well as indie stations and diginets.

It appears that LIV Golf and The CW are willing to go through the 2023 season without a Nielsen deal in place to measure their television viewership. The CW signed iSpot and L.A.-based VideoAmp to measure weekend daytime coverage. LIV has not been involved in these negotiations, a source said.

Wendy Werve is CMO of Marigold and has over 20 years of experience developing, leading and executing growth-focused marketing strategies.

The word recession is a scary one, particularly for businesses.

7digital Group PLC - London-based music licensing provider - Says that the court and general meeting for its acquisition by Songtradr Inc for GBP19.4 million will be held on March 23 in London. An agreement for the acquisition was reached on February 8.

Ad tech company Madhive said it named Darien Ford as chief technology officer.

Ford was most recently at Affirm, where he led the credit engineering organization. In his new job, he will look to build market adoption of the Madhive’s TV advertising software infrastructure.

Pet food brand Blue Buffalo has spent the first two months of 2023 increasing its TV ad presence, according to iSpot data. Through January and February, Blue Buffalo household TV ad impressions are already at 42% of the brand’s total for 2022, and are 228% higher than the first two months of last year. The chart below also shows Blue Buffalo taking a big bite out of pet food ad impressions so far in 2023.

Songtradr is one of the world’s largest B2B music licensing companies, delivering music solutions to music rights holders as well as brands, agencies, digital platforms and content creators. 7digital provides B2B end-to-end digital music solutions, with a scalable cloud-based platform that enables companies and brands to connect to its global music catalogue and rights management system.

Most recently, he was at Affirm, where he led the Credit Engineering organization and was responsible for building and managing all underwriting models and decisioning systems that processed every financial transaction.

Introducing Madhive‘s new CTO.

Wunderkind, the New York-based marketing startup, announced on Thursday it raised $76 million in Series C funding, TechCrunch reported. Neuberger Berman led the round, bringing total funding to the company to $151.9 million per Crunchbase data.

Chartbeat, a digital publishing software company, has acquired Tubular Labs, a social video analytics company, and Lineup Systems, a digital revenue management company.

Why it matters: The deals, which mark Chartbeat's first two acquisitions since being purchased by Cuadrilla Capital last year, expand Chartbeat's capabilities to serve media companies beyond their editorial needs.

Every weekday we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company.

One way brands can get audience attention? Using a popular song like The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” as Applebee’s did early this year. Songtradr data shows that in the past four months alone, the song has been streamed nearly 30 million times on Spotify. That consistent and increasing volume helps a brand like Applebee’s, which receives repeated brand equity that won’t fade given the song’s lasting popularity.

Every weekday we bring you the Ad Age/iSpot Hot Spots, new commercials tracked by iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. (Scroll down to watch them all.)

A few highlights: Etsy says, “For the life you’re making, Etsy has it.” Jimmy John’s hypes its new Caprese Salami Pesto Sandwich. And a gang of mountain bikers decides to rob a train to score free Mtn Dew (Mountain Dew).

The Campaign Monitor Blog is the definitive source for email marketing insights and best practices.

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The brand remains the most talked-about haircare brand on social media, with earned media value, a measure used to quantify the value of social media content, holding steady in 2021 and 2022, according to CreatorIQ.

Now, iSpot.tv is out with data that backs up our gripe. The TV measurement company says that nearly seven out of 10 (67%) of Super Bowl LVII commercials included celebrities—with many ads, of course, featuring multiple celebrities. The total celebrity count across all Big Game spots came in at 277.

"Data providers like Webbula are key partners in evangelizing Truthset's mission: data accuracy benefits everyone. As the data industry evolves to create new measurement standards, consistently accurate data providers will carry even more importance for the service they provide," said Chip Russo, Truthset President, “Ensuring the accuracy and quality of data is a foundational element for advertisers looking to increase ROAS.”

With over 126.5 million TV ad impressions, a new spot from Nissan advertising its current sales event takes first place in iSpot.tv’s ranking of the most-seen automotive ads for Feb. 13-19. Since debuting on Feb. 10, the commercial has aired over 750 times with Family Feud, Next Level Chef and Live with Kelly and Ryan as the top three impressions-generating programs.

The company has been the subject of not one, but two patent infringement suits filed by Nielsen. One in November 2021, and a more recent one last month.

Its entry into the market comes amid a gold rush of new alternate currency startups vying to compete with Nielsen as an ad industry currency, several of which (iSpot and Videoamp) have already been certified as currencies by NBCUniversal and other big media suppliers.