Automated content recognition (ACR), smart TVs, and ad-tech infrastructure

Bibliographic Data

ID7150986
AuthorsRamon Lobato (0000-0002-1689-7233, Swinburne University of Technology, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume31
Issue6
Pages1799-1814
Publication date2025-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueConvergence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1354-8565 • E-ISSN: 1748-7382
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13548565251327885
OpenAlexW4412434181
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited25

Smart TVs, which enable unprecedented viewing data to be collected at device level, are reconfiguring business practices in television advertising and audience measurement. Using a video fingerprinting technology known as automated content recognition (ACR), most smart TVs can now recognize virtually all content displayed on the TV screen, allowing precise targeting and re-targeting of ads to users based on their viewing behaviour and prior ad exposure. This article examines how TV manufacturers including Samsung, LG and Vizio integrated ACR technology into their businesses between 2012 and 2022. Drawing on infrastructural theories of connected TV and digital advertising, I show how ACR has contributed to TV manufacturers’ wider goal of becoming digital ad platforms, shifting the underlying power structures of both the consumer electronics and television advertising industries

Business · Big Data and Digital Economy · Computer Science

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