Insider’s Note: We admit we were wrong on our timing. Instead of a 1st quarter 2026 release, the Media Rating Council released their Final MRC Out of Home Standards yesterday. Here is their press release including a link to the Final Standard.
MRC Publishes Final Out-of-Home Standards: Combined Phase 1 & 2
New York, NY (December 4, 2025): The Media Rating Council (MRC) today published a final document outlining requirements, guidance and best practices for measurement of Out-of-Home (OOH) media.
This document represents a combination of two previous phases. The first phase (published final April 2024) addressed Standards applicable to several of the underlying components necessary to establish a qualified OOH measurement metric, and purposely omitted audience requirements. The second phase (released for public comment July 28, 2025) focused on the detail of what is necessary to qualify a reported statistic as audience.
The combined final document incorporates both previous phases into one unified Standard (that supersedes previously released versions) for the measurement of OOH, intended to foster a common core of metrics that can be applied across the full expanse of OOH media, as well as provide for comparability to other measured media.
Among the most important issues and requirements this document addresses are:
- A set of common measurement definitions and metrics applied to OOH
- Establishing exposure zone presence and measuring traffic
- Measurement of Impressions of varying levels (Gross, Viewable/OTS, LTS and Audience)
- Quality control over data sources
- Model selection and support
- Data editing, filtration and cleaning
- Disclosures and reporting
The final document is available here:
Please feel free to reach out to the MRC for further information at rpinelli@mediaratingcouncil.org.
About MRC
The Media Rating Council is a non-profit industry association established in 1963 comprised of leading television, radio, print and digital media companies, as well as advertisers, advertising agencies and trade associations, whose goal is to ensure measurement services that are valid, reliable and effective. Measurement services desiring MRC accreditation are required to disclose to their customers all methodological aspects of their service; comply with the MRC Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research as well as other applicable industry measurement guidelines; and submit to MRC-designed audits to authenticate and illuminate their procedures. In addition, the MRC membership actively pursues research issues they consider priorities in an effort to improve the quality of research in the marketplace. Currently approximately 110 research products are audited by the MRC. Additional information about MRC can be found at www.mediaratingcouncil.org.
Insider’s Take: One question (and we have a lot of questions) is who is going to take the lead? There could be companies that are already in the pre-assessment phase, but no one has admitted that publicly. We said earlier this week that Place Exchange has been the only company, we know of, who has publicly stated their intent to move their PerView product forward on MRC accreditation and Broadsign appears to be on board. With this release we may find out soon.
In the meantime, if you take the time to read the OOH Standard (good for you) and have questions about the Final Standard, send an email copying in both johnweller@billboardinsider.com and davewestburg@billboardinsider.com. We hope to reach out to the players involved and will include the best of your questions.
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