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Luminate (company)
Luminate (company)
Luminate (company)
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Luminate Data, LLC (formerly MRC Data and P-MRC Data) is a provider of music and entertainment data. It was established in 2020 as a joint venture, by Nielsen Music, Alpha Data (formerly BuzzAngle Music), and Variety Business Intelligence (formerly TVtracker).

Key Information

In December 2019, Eldridge Industries' Valence Media, then parent company of Billboard, had acquired Nielsen's music data business, thus reuniting it with Billboard after it had been spun off to E5 Global Media from Nielsen Business Media.[1] In 2020, Eldridge merged Valence into the film and television studio MRC, and then (as P-MRC Data) into its PMRC joint venture with Penske Media Corporation. P-MRC Data was renamed Luminate Data in March 2022.[2][3] In August 2022, the MRC merger was unwound, with Eldridge Industries taking sole ownership of its stake in PMRC.[4]

Nielsen Music

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Nielsen Music, originally established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, collects music consumption and sales weekly and makes this available every Sunday (for album sales) and every Monday (for song sales) to subscribers, which include record companies, publishing firms, music retailers, independent promoters, film and TV companies, and artist managers. It is the source of sales information for the Billboard music charts. The company operates the analytics platform Music Connect, Music 360[5] and Broadcast Data Systems (which tracks airplay of music), the latter of which was shut down in September 2022.[6]

Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales data for Nielsen on March 1, 1991.[7] The May 25 issue of Billboard published Billboard 200 and Country Album charts based on SoundScan "piece count data",[8][9] and the first Hot 100 chart to debut with the system was released on November 30, 1991. Previously, Billboard tracked sales by calling stores across the U.S. and asking about sales—a method that was inherently error-prone and open to outright fraud. Indeed, while transitioning from the calling to tracking methods, the airplay and sales charts (already monitored by Nielsen) and the Hot 100 (then still using the calling system) often did not match (for instance Paula Abdul's "The Promise of a New Day" and Roxette's "Fading Like a Flower" reached much higher Hot 100 peaks than their actual sales and airplay would have allowed them to).[10] Although most record company executives conceded that the new method was far more accurate than the old, the chart's volatility and its geographical balance initially caused deep concern, before the change and the market shifts it brought about were accepted across the industry. Tower Records, the country's second-largest retail chain, was originally not included in the sample because its stores were equipped with different technology to measure sales.[11][12] At first, some industry executives complained that the new system—which relied on high-tech sales measurement rather than store employee estimates—was based on an inadequate sample, one that favored established and mainstream acts over newcomers.[13][14]

The Recording Industry Association of America also tracks sales (or more specifically, shipments minus potential returns) on a long-term basis through the RIAA certification system; it has never used either Nielsen SoundScan or the store-calling method.

The first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song via Nielsen SoundScan was "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" by P.M. Dawn.

Other changes would also largely impact the Hot 100 in the future, consisting of radio-only songs being able to chart in 1998, and YouTube views playing part of how a Hot 100 is decided in 2013.

Sales data from cash registers is collected from 14,000 retail, mass merchant, and non-traditional (on-line stores, venues, digital music services, etc.) outlets in the United States, Canada, UK and Japan.

The requirements for reporting sales to Nielsen Music are that the store has Internet access and a point of sale (POS) inventory system. Submission of sales data must be in the form of a text file consisting of all the UPCs sold and the quantities per UPC on a weekly basis. Sales collected from Monday–Sunday or Sunday–Saturday are reported every Monday and made available to subscribers every Wednesday.[citation needed] Anyone selling a music product with its own UPC or ISRC may register that product to be tracked by Luminate.

Not all retailers participate in the SoundScan program, so total CD sales are projected from the collected data using a statistical calculation called "weighting". This assigns a multiplier to each category of stores, to compensate for the number of similar stores not covered by the sampling program. Sales in each category are multiplied accordingly.[15][16]

Such a system is vulnerable to exploitation if it is known which stores are included in the sampling program. To inflate their reported chart sales, some indie labels were reported to purposefully target stores in the program for on-site sales promotions.[17][18] Also, other labels were found shipping boxes of their CDs to be scanned by complicit retailers in the program.[16]

The incorporation of SoundScan tracking by the Billboard charting system was cited by the industry as a possible cause of the early '90s popularization of alternative music in the United States. An explanation floated was that the previous call system under-represented marginal genres. Under SoundScan, more accurate data on alternative music sales allowed these acts to appear higher in the Billboard charts than before, and their chart success helped increase the genre's popularity. In addition, SoundScan sales data quickly found use in the promotion departments at major record labels, to persuade radio station music directors to play tracks by high-selling alternative artists such as Nirvana.[12][19]

Alpha Data

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Alpha Data (formerly, but commonly known as BuzzAngle Music) was a music analytics firm which provided statistics for the music industry, including record sales and music streaming.

TVtracker

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TVtracker, founded in 1999 by Mark Hoebich, tracks and analyzes all aspects of U.S. filmed entertainment, including television, feature film and digital entertainment, with coverage of everything from pilot pickups and series orders to motion picture development and post-production. The company evolved into Variety Business Intelligence and operates as Luminate Film & TV.

See also

[edit]

References

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Luminate (company)

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Luminate is an industry and that delivers comprehensive insights, metrics, and predictive tools across , , and television sectors.
Established in October 2020 as a between (PMC) and MRC, the initially operated as P-MRC Data before rebranding to Luminate in March 2022.
It is now an independently operated subsidiary of PME TopCo, a between PMC and , integrating assets such as MRC Data, Variety Business Intelligence, and Music Connect to provide objective, trustworthy from sources including streaming, sales, airplay, and viewership.
Luminate's key products include consumption tracking, and TV metadata, streaming , and industry reports, with innovations such as a 2023 platform, a 2024 beta tool for measuring streaming viewership, and a November 2025 partnership with TME Chart to incorporate Chinese into its global for the first time. In February 2024, the acquired Quansic, a leader in rights , to enhance its catalog intelligence capabilities.

History

Origins and formation

The origins of Luminate trace back to key predecessor companies in data tracking, beginning with SoundScan, which was founded in 1991 by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett as a system to electronically track point-of-sale through scanning at retail outlets. This innovation addressed longstanding inaccuracies in industry reporting by providing verifiable data from participating stores, quickly becoming integral to Billboard's chart methodologies. Over time, SoundScan evolved under , rebranding as Nielsen SoundScan and expanding to encompass broader consumption metrics, including digital and streaming, while remaining a cornerstone of Nielsen 's offerings. In parallel, other foundational assets emerged within the evolving landscape of entertainment analytics. MRC Data was established in December 2019 when Valence Media, backed by , acquired Nielsen Music's data and insights suite, including SoundScan, for airplay monitoring, and Music Connect for integrated streaming and sales analytics. This acquisition integrated Nielsen's point-of-sale and consumption tracking with emerging tools like Alpha Data—formerly BuzzAngle Music, which (PMC) had invested in and rebranded in 2018 to focus on streaming, , and audio/video metrics. Earlier in 2020, further consolidated by merging Valence Media's music data assets into its studio operations, setting the stage for broader unification. Luminate's direct predecessor, P-MRC Data, was formed in October 2020 as a joint venture between PMC and Eldridge Industries (controlling MRC), equally owned and operated to merge these disparate data streams into a single platform. The venture combined MRC Data's comprehensive music tracking with PMC's assets, such as Alpha Data and Variety Business Intelligence for film and TV insights, aiming to resolve industry fragmentation by delivering unified analytics across music, film, and television consumption. This formation addressed the need for holistic, objective data in an increasingly digital entertainment ecosystem, positioning P-MRC Data as an independent provider free from traditional media conglomerates.

Rebranding and expansion

In March 2022, P-MRC Data underwent a significant to Luminate, a name chosen to reflect its expanding role in providing cross-industry analytics for the music, film, and television sectors, particularly in an era dominated by streaming services. This unified longstanding data brands such as Nielsen Music and Variety Insight under a single entity, aiming to deliver objective, comprehensive insights into the evolving entertainment data economy. The change was announced at SXSW, signaling Luminate's commitment to illuminating trends across global entertainment consumption. As part of its early expansion initiatives, Luminate focused on integrating its disparate platforms to provide unified , combining metrics from , streaming, and to enable holistic tracking of performance. This internal consolidation built on the company's foundational assets, allowing for more seamless cross-sector analysis amid the rise of . In October 2022, Luminate further advanced this strategy by launching Luminate Film & TV, a dedicated division rebranding its previous , television, and theatrical offerings, which include production, distribution, and tools. Luminate's leadership articulated a clear strategic vision during this period, positioning the company as the "preeminent data and insights company" for the global industry by emphasizing clarity and trustworthiness in a complex landscape. CEO Rob Jonas stated, "The name represents our mission to bring clarity and insight to a complex and evolving industry." These efforts solidified Luminate's foundation, enhancing its ability to support decision-making across the ecosystem.

Acquisitions and partnerships

In February 2024, Luminate acquired Quansic, a French-based platform specializing in AI-driven music identification and metadata matching for over 50 million tracks worldwide. This acquisition integrated Quansic's technology into Luminate's ecosystem, enhancing the accuracy and completeness of data used in streaming analytics, sales tracking, and chart compilation. Quansic's team, led by founder FX Nuttall, joined Luminate while continuing to operate its core services, supporting broader efforts to unify fragmented music metadata across global platforms. On April 16, 2025, Luminate announced a with KreatorsNetwork, a South Korean services firm, granting the company exclusive licensing rights to Luminate's global music streaming data in Korea. This agreement provides access to Luminate's CONNECT platform, aiming to support the global expansion of labels and enhance visibility for Korean music in international markets. On November 6, 2025, Luminate announced a with Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), integrating sales and streaming data from TME's platforms—such as , Kugou Music, and Kuwo Music—into Luminate's global dataset for the first time. This collaboration expands Luminate's coverage to the region, particularly China's vast music market, providing international visibility into consumption metrics previously underrepresented in Western analytics. The partnership enables TME data to inform Luminate's CONNECT platform and contribute to Billboard's global charts, fostering more comprehensive cross-border insights. Throughout 2025, Luminate released key reports underscoring its evolving data capabilities, including "The State of the Music Industry 2025" in June, which examined streaming challenges, live events, and AI's role; the Midyear Music Report in July, which analyzed global streaming growth of 10% to 2.5 trillion on-demand audio streams in the first half of the year, the resurgence of R&B genres, and the increasing influence of AI in production and distribution; "Music Rights & Catalog Acquisitions" in November, exploring the surge in catalog sales as an alternative asset class driven by streaming data; and at the conference in October 2025, Luminate presented its Global Entertainment Trends report, highlighting disruptions across , and sectors, such as the rise of series and shifting creator economies. These initiatives collectively address critical gaps in emerging markets and , strengthening Luminate's position as a foundational data provider for industry benchmarks, including Billboard's longstanding chart partnerships. By incorporating AI-enhanced metadata and Asian market metrics, Luminate enhances the reliability of global , supporting creators and executives in navigating a more interconnected landscape.

Services

Music data and analytics

Luminate's music data and analytics offerings provide comprehensive tracking of music consumption across multiple channels, including physical and digital sales, audio and video streaming, radio airplay, and engagement. This data powers the , which Luminate has supported since its inception through the legacy Nielsen SoundScan system, ensuring accurate rankings based on equivalent album units (EAUs) derived from weighted consumption metrics. The methodologies integrate first-party data from over 500 verified sources, such as global digital service providers (DSPs) like and for streaming, retailers' point-of-sale (POS) systems for sales via and ICPN tracking—a Nielsen legacy approach—and data from partners like . originates from Alpha Data's platform, covering on-demand audio and video plays, while social metrics draw from BuzzAngle's historical capabilities, now unified to measure across platforms. These sources are processed using advanced to convert disparate activities into comparable units, such as 1,500 on-demand audio streams equating to one album unit, enabling holistic performance analysis. Key products include the Luminate Index, a composite score over 500 artists on a 0-100 scale to benchmark influence, incorporating 30% streaming weight, 25% awareness from consumer surveys, and data alongside proprietary audience metrics. Luminate also publishes annual and midyear reports highlighting industry trends; for instance, the 2025 Midyear Music Report documented a slowdown in U.S. on-demand audio streaming growth to 4.6% in the first half of 2025 (from 8.0% in the first half of 2024) and a 3.3% decline in streams for current music tracks under 18 months old, with hip-hop/R&B facing a 9.2% year-over-year drop in current releases. Post-merger unification of datasets from Nielsen, Alpha Data, and BuzzAngle has enabled detailed global insights, processing over 4.8 trillion on-demand audio streams annually as of 2024, with breakdowns by region (e.g., 17.3% non-U.S. growth), , and to support strategic in the music industry. In November 2025, Luminate partnered with Tencent Music Entertainment to integrate sales metrics into its global music data for the first time.

Film and television insights

Luminate Film & TV provides comprehensive analytics tailored to the and television industries, supporting key stages from script development through distribution and audience engagement. These tools assist in script by analyzing comparable projects' , decisions through talent databases and historical casting trends, financing via deal tracking and market viability assessments, and release strategies with predictive modeling for optimal timing and platforms. tracking encompasses theatrical revenue metrics, while viewership data spans linear TV, streaming services, and video-on-demand (VOD), enabling stakeholders to monitor real-time consumption patterns across global markets. Central to Luminate's offerings are insights into global content pipelines, which aggregate data on active and upcoming projects worldwide, demographics including age, gender, and regional preferences, and performance forecasting to predict outcomes based on historical benchmarks and current trends. These capabilities draw from an authoritative database covering people, projects, and companies at every phase of production and distribution, serving producers, studios, and executives in refining content strategies and media planning. For instance, streaming viewership allow comparisons of up to six titles across major U.S. platforms, providing metrics on minutes watched and share to inform competitive positioning. Methodologically, Luminate integrates historical assets from its predecessor P-MRC Data for theatrical and home entertainment metrics, ensuring robust tracking of and sales. This is complemented by partnerships and proprietary tools for real-time streaming viewership, building on Nielsen's legacy in TV ratings to deliver big-data-driven measurements that include first-party streaming data. Such integrations enable accurate, timely metadata verification for over 20 trillion data points, facilitating reliable across linear and digital formats. In 2025, Luminate's on generative AI in highlighted its divisive impact across and Western sectors, with creators expressing concerns over practices, rights, loss of creative control, ethical issues, and threats to for roles like storyboarding and in-betweening. The , based on industry surveys and trends, underscored a split between optimism for efficiency gains in production and fears of displacement, particularly as AI tools advance in generating visuals and narratives. This emphasized the need for balanced policies to protect workers while leveraging for .

Artist and content tools

Luminate offers specialized tools for artist identification and content metadata management, primarily through the integration of the Quansic platform and its Film & TV database. The Quansic platform, acquired by Luminate in February 2024, employs AI-driven technologies to match and harmonize artist names, aliases, and metadata across global databases. It maintains the world's largest artist identification database, encompassing over 2.5 million International Standard Name Identifiers (ISNIs) for artists and more than 200 million asset identifiers for tracks and recordings. This enables the resolution of duplicates and inconsistencies in data from diverse sources, such as streaming services, sales reports, and logs, ensuring precise attribution of creative credits and royalties. In the film and television domain, Luminate's tools stem from its legacy TV Tracker and Variety Insight databases, which form the foundation of the Luminate Film & platform. These provide comprehensive metadata management for content, including unique identifiers for series, seasons, and across broadcast, cable, and streaming formats. The platform tracks episode airings, ratings, and syndication patterns in multiple markets, supporting over 294 networks and 98 streaming platforms globally. Features like the Primetime Top 50 Charts allow users to monitor top-performing shows by category, such as scripted or alternative content, while integrating historical and real-time consumption data for informed decision-making in production and distribution. These tools collectively enhance across Luminate's ecosystem by standardizing entity recognition and enabling cross-platform searches for artists and content. For instance, Quansic's artist matching improves accuracy in streaming reports and royalty calculations, reducing errors in . Similarly, the Film & TV metadata tools facilitate and insights, with coverage extending to 4.5 million credits and 81,000 industry professionals. By unifying disparate data sources, they support broader services like music and television insights without overlapping into aggregate metrics or trends.

References

  1. https://luminatedata.com/about/
  2. https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/luminate-p-mrc-data-music-entertainment-1235205741/
  3. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/trends-and-analytics-platform-p-mrc-data-rebrands-to-luminate/
  4. https://luminatedata.com/blog/quansic-aquisition-press-release/
  5. https://www.billboard.com/pro/luminate-new-music-data-platform-what-it-does/
  6. https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/496154-17
  7. https://www.fastcompany.com/91036036/luminate-most-innovative-companies-2024
  8. https://luminatedata.com/blog/luminate-tme-chart-partnership/
  9. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-12-08-ca-85-story.html
  10. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/09/08/soundscan-valence-media-billboard-nielsen/
  11. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/billboard-nielsen-music-valence-media-acquisition-mrc-data-8546636/
  12. https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2019/valence-media-acquires-nielsen-music-data-and-insights-product-suite-and-creates-new-mrc-data-division/
  13. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/penske-media-and-mrc-form-data-joint-venture/
  14. https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/pmc-mrc-joint-venture-data-businesses-1234813463/
  15. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/penske-media-and-mrc-form-data-joint-venture-301158900.html
  16. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/music-and-entertainment-dataanalytics-company-p-mrc-data-changes-name-to-luminate-reflecting-its-role-in-entertainments-data-economy-301503789.html
  17. https://www.billboard.com/pro/p-mrc-data-rebrand-luminate/
  18. https://deadline.com/2022/10/luminate-rebrands-as-luminate-film-amp-tv-1235146715/
  19. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/luminate-acquires-artist-data-identification-service-quansic/
  20. https://www.billboard.com/business/business-news/luminate-acquires-quansic-1235599909/
  21. https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2024/02/luminate-acquires-artist-id-database-quansic.html
  22. https://luminatedata.com/blog/global-entertainment-data-company-luminate-and-koreas-kreatorsnetwork-sign-new-partnership-agreement/
  23. https://www.billboard.com/pro/luminate-kreatorsnetwork-sign-new-partnership-agreement/
  24. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/luminate-strikes-partnership-with-south-koreas-kreatorsnetwork-an-artist-services-firm-aiming-to-globalize-k-pop-labels/
  25. https://luminatedata.com/luminate-tme-chart-partnership/
  26. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/luminate-partners-with-tencent-music-to-add-sales-metrics-from-china-to-its-global-data-set-for-the-first-time/
  27. https://www.billboard.com/pro/luminate-integrate-chinese-music-data-tencent-music-deal/
  28. https://luminatedata.com/reports/midyear-music-industry-report-2025/
  29. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rjonas_insights-from-luminates-2025-midyear-music-activity-7351238263602339840-GrnJ
  30. https://luminatedata.com/reports/global-entertainment-trends-2025/
  31. https://www.mipcom.com/en-gb/portal/sessions/session-details.4592.248284.The%252BGlobal%252BTrends%252BShaping%252BEntertainment%2525E2%252580%252599s%252BFuture%252BPresented%252Bby%252BLuminate.html
  32. https://luminatedata.com/intelligence/
  33. https://luminatedata.com/music/
  34. https://support.luminatedata.com/portal/en/kb/articles/methodology
  35. https://support.luminatedata.com/portal/en/kb/articles/activity-types
  36. https://luminatedata.com/luminate-index/
  37. https://luminatedata.com/blog/introducing-the-luminate-index-to-measure-artists-influence/
  38. https://view.ceros.com/luminate-data/2025-midyear-music-report
  39. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/global-audio-streams-jumped-14-in-2024-to-4-8-trillion-as-pop-music-was-the-fastest-growing-genre-in-the-us/
  40. https://luminatedata.com/reports/yearend-music-industry-report-2024/
  41. https://luminatedata.com/filmandtv/
  42. https://luminatedata.com/filmandtv/streaming-viewership/
  43. https://luminatedata.com/
  44. https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/nielsen-big-data-panel-technology-accreditation-tv-upfront-1236280721/
  45. https://variety.com/2025/film/news/ai-divisive-animation-anime-luminate-report-1236504906/
  46. https://www.animationmagazine.net/2025/09/new-report-from-luminate-predicts-animation-jobs-most-likely-to-be-impacted-by-ai/
  47. https://quansic.com/matching/
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