Executive Summary / Key Takeaways

• Strategic Pivot to Cross-Platform: Comscore is undergoing a significant transformation, shifting from traditional media measurement to a leader in cross-platform audience and ad measurement, driven by proprietary data science and new product launches like Comscore Content Measurement (CCM) and Certified Deal IDs.
• Technological Edge & Accreditation: The company's unique data footprint and MRC/JIC accreditations for TV measurement provide a critical competitive advantage, enabling deduplicated, person-level insights across fragmented media landscapes.
• Financial Stabilization & Growth Drivers: Recent financing and cost-saving initiatives, including the Charter agreement amendment, have improved liquidity. While legacy segments face headwinds, high-margin cross-platform solutions are driving revenue acceleration and expected Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 12%-15% for FY2025.
• Market Opportunity Amidst Fragmentation: Comscore is well-positioned to capitalize on the rapidly growing programmatic ad spend market and the industry's demand for unified measurement amidst increasing media fragmentation and privacy concerns.
• Key Risks & Strategic Review: Macroeconomic ad spend softness and the complexities of managing preferred stock obligations pose ongoing risks, while an active strategic review by the Board, advised by Goldman Sachs (GS), could lead to significant capital structure changes.

The Evolving Landscape of Media Measurement

Comscore, Inc., founded in 1999, has long been a foundational player in the media analytics space, providing critical insights into advertising, content, and consumer audiences across diverse platforms. The company's journey, notably including its 2016 merger with Rentrak, has consistently aimed at refining the understanding of media consumption. Today, Comscore stands at a pivotal juncture, strategically reorienting itself to address the profound shifts in how audiences engage with content and advertising.

The media industry is experiencing unprecedented fragmentation. Connected TV (CTV) viewing has surged from approximately 30% to over 60% of monthly viewing in just four years, creating a complex, multi-platform environment. This fragmentation makes it increasingly difficult for advertisers to effectively reach their target audiences, leading to billions of dollars in wasted ad spend. Simultaneously, the programmatic ad spend market in the U.S. is booming, projected to approach $200 billion by 2026, significantly outpacing the traditional linear TV ad market. This dynamic, coupled with evolving privacy regulations and the deprecation of traditional identifiers, necessitates sophisticated, ID-free solutions that can provide a holistic, deduplicated view of consumer behavior.

Technological Moats and Innovation

At the heart of Comscore's strategy is its differentiated technology and expansive data footprint. The company leverages a global data platform that integrates information from digital platforms, connected televisions, mobile devices, tablets, computers, and movie screens. This vast dataset, combined with proprietary data science, enables the measurement of person-level and household-level audiences, critically removing duplicated viewing across devices and over time. This capability forms the bedrock for a common standard upon which buyers and sellers can transact advertising.

Comscore's technological prowess translates into tangible benefits and competitive advantages. Its ability to unify behavioral and descriptive data allows for the provision of audience ratings, advertising verification, and granular consumer segments. This is particularly evident in its TV measurement offerings, where Comscore remains the only solution accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for both local and national TV measurement, including demos. Furthermore, by July 2025, Comscore achieved full U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) certification for national TV measurement, including persons-based data, making it the sole provider with both JIC certification across all evaluated categories and MRC accreditation. This dual validation signals a high degree of methodological rigor and reliability, distinguishing Comscore from competitors.

Recent innovations underscore Comscore's commitment to leading the future of measurement. In January 2025, the company launched Comscore Content Measurement (CCM), a cross-platform content measurement and planning solution. CCM aims to provide a holistic, omnichannel, and deduplicated view of audience engagement with content, whether on linear TV, streaming, social media, or the open web. This product directly addresses an "unmet need for clients" seeking to understand audience behavior holistically and is seeing encouraging early adoption with a strong pipeline. The company is accelerating its product roadmap to deliver key features for CCM by year-end.

Another significant development is the May 2025 launch of Comscore Certified Deal IDs in partnership with Magnite (MGNI). This solution leverages Comscore's trusted content rankings to offer advertisers a reliable path to high-quality programmatic inventory, helping them "avoid wasted ad spend." Initially available through Magnite's supply-side platform (SSP), which covers 96% of overall omnichannel supply, this initiative automates manual inclusion/exclusion list creation and provides flexibility to target top-ranked publisher properties. Comscore's Predictive Audiences offering, an ID-free, AI-enabled audience activation product, has also demonstrated strong performance, more than doubling revenue in Q3 2024 compared to Q3 2023. This privacy-forward solution is gaining traction as advertisers grapple with an increasingly complex privacy landscape.

Competitive Positioning

Comscore operates in a dynamic and competitive landscape, facing established players and agile innovators. Its primary direct competitors include Nielsen (NLSN), DoubleVerify (DV), and Magnite.

Nielsen, a long-standing giant in audience measurement, particularly in TV ratings, offers a broader, more integrated dataset across media types. However, Comscore distinguishes itself with greater agility in digital environments and cross-platform tracking, potentially offering faster insights into digital video consumption. While Nielsen benefits from its scale and brand loyalty, Comscore's specialized, cross-platform solutions, particularly in ad verification and OTT tracking, allow it to capture opportunities in rapidly growing digital segments.

Against DoubleVerify, which specializes in ad verification and brand safety, Comscore offers more comprehensive audience measurement and full-funnel analytics. Comscore's Validated Campaign Essentials provide broader insights into ad performance across platforms, aiming for more integrated data than DoubleVerify's focused verification tools. While DoubleVerify excels in real-time fraud prevention, Comscore's strength lies in combining measurement with optimization, offering end-to-end solutions.

Compared to Magnite, a key player in programmatic advertising platforms, Comscore focuses on measurement and analytics rather than pure ad exchange. Comscore's analytical depth, particularly in audience insights and content rankings, provides strategic value for advertisers, whereas Magnite leads in the scale and speed of ad transactions. Comscore's data accuracy can provide an edge in brand protection, though it may lag Magnite in distribution reach for high-volume programmatic markets.

Overall, Comscore positions itself as a specialized leader in digital measurement, leveraging its unique data science and accreditations to address the market's evolving needs for deduplicated, cross-platform insights. Its competitive advantages are rooted in its proprietary technology and strategic partnerships, which enhance customer loyalty and drive recurring revenue in digital segments. However, the company faces vulnerabilities related to dependencies on data partnerships and a narrower market focus compared to some larger, more diversified competitors.

Financial Performance and Liquidity

Comscore's recent financial performance reflects both the challenges of its legacy business and the promising growth of its strategic initiatives. For the second quarter of 2025, total revenue reached $89.4 million, marking a 4.1% increase year-over-year from $85.8 million. This growth was primarily fueled by its Content Ad Measurement segment, which saw a 6.3% increase to $76.8 million. Within this segment, cross-platform revenue surged by 60% year-over-year to $12.8 million, driven by increased usage of Proximic and Comscore Campaign Ratings, alongside the early adoption of Comscore Content Measurement. Local TV offerings also demonstrated double-digit growth, benefiting from higher renewals and new business. However, these gains were partially offset by declines in national TV and syndicated digital products due to lower renewals, and a 7.4% decrease in Research Insight Solutions revenue to $12.6 million, primarily from lower deliveries of custom digital products.

Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2025 stood at $8.9 million, a significant 24.5% increase from the prior year quarter, resulting in an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10%. This margin expansion is largely attributable to the higher-margin nature of Comscore's growing cross-platform products. While core operating expenses increased due to higher employee compensation accruals and cloud computing costs related to a large enterprise client, the company saw a decrease in data costs following the December 2024 amendment to its data license agreement with Charter Operating (CHTR), which shifted to a household-count-based fee structure.
Looking at the full year 2024, Comscore reported total revenue of $356.05 million, a 4.1% decline from 2023, but notably, cross-platform revenue grew 20% to $40.5 million, demonstrating strong demand in the second half of the year. Adjusted EBITDA for FY2024 was $42.4 million, yielding an 11.9% margin, reflecting disciplined cost management.

Liquidity has seen significant improvement. As of June 30, 2025, Comscore's cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash totaled $29.5 million. In December 2024, the company secured a new $60 million senior secured financing agreement, comprising a $45 million term loan and a $15 million revolving credit facility. Proceeds from the term loan were strategically used to resolve approximately $18 million in aged accounts payable balances in Q4 2024, cash collateralize outstanding letters of credit, and terminate a prior credit facility. The Charter data license amendment is estimated to provide over $35 million in cash savings over its remaining six-year term, further bolstering financial flexibility.

However, the company's preferred stock obligations remain a key consideration. As of June 30, 2025, accrued dividends for the preferred stock totaled $17.9 million. While holders waived their right to receive June 30, 2025, annual dividends (which will now accrue at 9.50% until December 31, 2025), the Credit Agreement prohibits cash dividends to preferred stockholders prior to April 1, 2026, making future payments in securities more likely and potentially leading to further dilution for common stockholders.

Outlook and Risks

Comscore's management maintains a clear vision for 2025, focusing on continued growth in its cross-platform and TV currency offerings. The company expects full-year 2025 revenue to be at the low end of its $360 million to $370 million range. This guidance is underpinned by expectations of high double-digit growth from cross-platform solutions like Proximic, Comscore Campaign Ratings, and CCM. Management anticipates continued acceleration in the usage of Comscore TV as a currency throughout the year, building on the record levels of ad spend transacted on its currency in Q4 2024. For Q3 2025, revenue is expected to be roughly flat year-over-year, primarily due to a timing shift related to a Google (GOOGL) contract.

On the profitability front, Comscore projects an improvement in its Adjusted EBITDA margin for 2025, anticipating a full-year margin of 12% to 15%. This expansion is largely driven by the increasing revenue contribution from higher-margin cross-platform solutions and ongoing cost containment efforts.

Despite the positive outlook for its strategic growth areas, Comscore acknowledges significant macroeconomic headwinds. Softness in the advertising market, stemming from inflation, capital market disruptions, and U.S. trade policy developments, is expected to persist through the second half of 2025. This uncertainty could lead to reduced or delayed advertising expenditures, directly impacting demand for Comscore's products. Furthermore, legacy media channels are expected to remain challenged, and demand for custom digital products is anticipated to be unpredictable, leading to a conservatively built forecast.

The company's debt obligations under the Credit Agreement also present risks, as restrictive covenants could limit operational flexibility and future financing options. A state sales tax audit from Washington, with an initial assessment of approximately $8 million, introduces an additional layer of financial uncertainty, though the company believes its position is strong. The ongoing strategic review, advised by Goldman Sachs, while aimed at benefiting shareholders, could also result in significant capital structure changes, including potential further equity issuances and dilution.

Conclusion

Comscore is actively transforming its business to meet the demands of a fragmented and privacy-conscious media landscape. By leveraging its unique data science, expanding its cross-platform measurement capabilities, and securing critical industry accreditations, the company is solidifying its position as a trusted currency for advertisers and publishers. The strong growth in its cross-platform solutions and the increasing adoption of Comscore TV as a currency are clear indicators of this strategic pivot gaining traction.

While macroeconomic uncertainties and legacy business headwinds present challenges, Comscore's improved liquidity, disciplined cost management, and continuous technological innovation position it for a potential return to overall revenue growth and margin expansion in 2025. The success of its new offerings like CCM and Certified Deal IDs, coupled with its ID-free solutions, will be crucial in capturing market share in the burgeoning programmatic advertising space. Investors should closely monitor the execution of its strategic initiatives, the outcomes of its ongoing strategic review, and the broader advertising market trends as Comscore strives to unlock its full value as a leader in the future of media measurement.