Gracenote

Name

Gracenote

Legal name

Gracenote, Inc.

Website

https://gracenote.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1995

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Entertainment Metadata and Content Intelligence

NAICS

Information (51), Software Publishers (513210)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Content Identification & Matching (Fingerprinting, ID Resolution) (MPAHALAE)

Keywords

• Entertainment metadata
• Content identification
• CTV advertising data
• Content discovery
• Music metadata services

Headquarters

HQ city

Emeryville

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Entertainment Metadata Licensing: Gracenote generates revenue by licensing its entertainment metadata, content IDs, and data solutions to streaming platforms, TV manufacturers, automotive companies, and content distributors. The company provides data covering 30M+ titles across 360 streaming catalogs in 35 languages and 60 countries.
2. CTV Advertising Platform: Revenue from the Content Connect platform enabling programmatic CTV advertising with program-level targeting. The platform uses CPM pricing model and integrates with SSPs and DSPs for real-time bidding.
3. Contextual Advertising Data: Gracenote provides contextual video data enabling advertisers to target CTV inventory based on program-level signals including genre, mood, ratings, and content advisories, monetized through data licensing and platform fees.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Gracenote provides standardized entertainment metadata, universal content identifiers, and content intelligence data products for TV shows, movies, music, and sports across 30 million titles in 360 streaming catalogs and 80+ countries. Its offerings power content discovery, distribution, and contextual advertising for streaming platforms, smart TV manufacturers, automotive infotainment systems, and programmatic advertising ecosystems. The company also operates the Content Connect CTV advertising platform and the Video MCP Server that connects large language models to verified entertainment data.

Product overview

Gracenote operates as a content intelligence platform offering a comprehensive portfolio of metadata solutions for the media and entertainment industry. The core platform consists of Video Data and Audio Data products providing entertainment metadata covering TV shows, movies, music and sports across 70+ languages in 80+ countries. The platform-plus-modules architecture includes specialized products: CTV Content Intelligence and Content Connect for connected TV advertising; Sports Data and On Sports for sports content; Nexus Auto and Smart Radio for automotive and radio verticals; Studio System for content development analytics; and Content Analytics with Inclusion Analytics for diversity measurement. The Video MCP Server (AI product) connects LLMs to Gracenote's knowledge base using the Model Context Protocol, enabling AI-powered search and discovery experiences. The Data Hub provides quarterly industry insights into SVOD and FAST channel content trends. These products work together to power the entertainment ecosystem from content creation through consumption, enabling content discovery, programmatic advertising, and viewer engagement across streaming platforms, smart TVs, automotive systems, and broadcast services.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Content Connect: CTV advertising platform enabling program-level targeting using Gracenote's proprietary content ID graph for contextual ad targeting and campaign performance.
• Video MCP Server
• Gracenote Ads

Products and services

• Video MCP Server AI product that connects large language models with Gracenote's entertainment knowledge base using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Improves search and recommendation accuracy by grounding AI responses in verified, continuously updated entertainment data for TV platforms including TV shows, movies, and sports programs.
• Video Data

Quantifiable outcome

• 86% of US media planners would shift more linear TV budget to CTV if show-level targeting were available
• +6 more outcomes

Named customers20 records

Segments8 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration8 records

AI capability10 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered strategic, core and minor.

• XumostrategicTechnology or Integration · 22 June 2026Xumo, the streaming platform joint venture between Comcast and Charter, announced expanded integrations with Gracenote to enhance contextual advertising capabilities across its FAST inventory of 2,000 channels on more than 30 platforms. The integrations provide advertisers with program-level and video-level contextual intelligence for both linear and on-demand streaming content.
• PubMaticcoreTechnology or Integration · 17 June 2026Gracenote and PubMatic announced a strategic partnership integrating Gracenote's content intelligence, including contextual segments and live sports schedule data, directly into PubMatic's programmatic CTV platform. The integration runs on IAB Tech Lab's Agentic Real-Time Framework within PubMatic's AgenticOS, enabling real-time matching of bid opportunities at auction with minimal latency of 0.1 to 0.5 milliseconds.
• SamsungcoreTechnology or Integration · 25 February 2026Samsung partnered with Nielsen's Gracenote to use its metadata for advanced search capabilities and personalized content recommendations on smart TVs. The deal gives Samsung access to Gracenote's data infrastructure to develop AI-driven product offerings and operational efficiencies across TV, movies and sports content. Samsung becomes the second company after Google to tap Gracenote's data to ground and validate LLM-based content discovery.
• GooglecoreTechnology or Integration · 1 February 2026Gracenote signed a deal with Google to provide structured entertainment metadata for AI-powered search and discovery, including conversational interfaces and content recommendations. The agreement aims to embed Gracenote's metadata infrastructure at the core of consumer experiences and advertising targeting on Google platforms.
• Index ExchangecoreTechnology or Integration · 6 January 2026Index Exchange announced a new capability with Gracenote enabling show-level transparency for streaming TV ad buyers. The partnership provides buyers with program-level impression counts and post-campaign reporting without requiring activation against Gracenote segments. Spectrum Reach is among the first media partners to adopt the solution.
• Peer39coreTechnology or Integration · 25 July 2024Gracenote teamed with Peer39 to power new contextual CTV categories using Gracenote's program-level metadata. These categories are available on Peer39 partner DSP platforms enabling programmatic CTV ad buys for the first time, creating the most scaled and precise set of CTV data available to the marketplace.
• MagnitecoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 25 July 2024Gracenote tapped Magnite as the first SSP to support and scale new CTV categories powered by Gracenote metadata. Magnite's controls allow publishers to determine when content metadata is shared with advertisers, enabling Gracenote data integration into the programmatic advertising ecosystem.
• Liberty GlobalcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 25 July 2023Liberty Global partnered with Gracenote for metadata powering its Horizon 4 super-aggregation platform. Nielsen's Gracenote first partnered on metadata for Liberty Global's U.K. business, Virgin Media, in 2010, and has gone on to power metadata solutions across the operator's markets, completing support for Horizon 4 in early 2023.
• USOPC (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe USOPC partnered with Gracenote and Infostrada using machine learning to develop a data analytics system projecting medal probabilities during the Milan Cortina Winter Games. The system tracks 300,000 data points per week and generates color-coded projections for total and gold medal expectancy.

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Broad incumbents

• IMDb (Amazon): Amazon-owned entertainment metadata platform covering movies, TV, and celebrities. Direct functional competitor in entertainment metadata, particularly for video titles, and could be considered an insourcing risk for Amazon's own streaming properties.
• Comscore: Media measurement and cross-platform audience analytics company. Overlaps with Gracenote in providing content and audience intelligence to the entertainment and advertising ecosystems, though Comscore is more focused on audience measurement than metadata licensing.
• FreeWheel (Comcast): Comcast-owned ad management and monetization platform for premium video. Provides comparable ad serving and contextual capabilities for streaming TV, with direct overlap in the CTV advertising infrastructure where Gracenote operates.

Direct peers

• Samba TV: Provides TV and CTV viewership data, content metadata, and audience analytics to advertisers and platforms. Directly comparable in providing content intelligence for CTV advertising and cross-platform measurement.
• IRIS.TV: Provides video-level contextual intelligence and content metadata for CTV and video advertising. Directly competes with Gracenote in providing program-level metadata for contextual ad targeting, as evidenced by joint integrations with Xumo.
• TV Guide (Fandom): Long-standing entertainment metadata and programming guide brand now part of Fandom. Overlaps with Gracenote's content discovery and program metadata offerings, though more consumer-facing than Gracenote's B2B infrastructure play.

Emerging players

• DoubleVerify: Provides media quality analytics including contextual classification for advertising. Competes in the CTV contextual targeting space where Gracenote's Content Connect operates, though DoubleVerify's strength is more in verification/brand safety than program-level metadata.
• Integral Ad Science (IAS): Digital media quality and ad verification platform with contextual targeting capabilities. Comparable to Gracenote's CTV Content Intelligence in providing signals to advertisers about content context for brand suitability.
• EDO: TV and CTV advertising effectiveness measurement company. Comparable in providing outcome-based advertising data for streaming TV, complementing Gracenote's content metadata with advertiser-side performance signals.

Others

• Spotify (for music metadata): Both a customer of Gracenote Audio Data and a competitor in music metadata applications. Relevant comparability due to overlapping audio content intelligence use cases, though Spotify is primarily a consumer platform.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Gracenotetweets
• Facebookfacebook.com/PoweredByGracenote
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/gracenote

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles12 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds4 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A8 records

Investments5 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Gracenote