Comscore reported a net loss of $65.5 million for the third quarter of 2026 on November 3, 2026, after writing down $57.3 million of goodwill and booking $5.5 million of restructuring costs in the quarter in which it announced a plan to cut up to $25 million a year from its cost base. A year earlier, the same three months produced net income of $0.5 million.

Revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 was $76.2 million, down 14.3% from $88.9 million. Most of that gap reflects the Movies business, which Comscore sold on May 27, 2026 and which contributed $9.5 million in the third quarter of 2025. Excluding it, revenue fell 4.1% from a pro forma $79.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA, the non-GAAP profit measure Comscore's management uses to track the business, was $5.8 million against $11.0 million a year earlier. Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash stood at $19.5 million. Full-year guidance of $315 million to $325 million in revenue was left unchanged.

In Short

Comscore, a company that counts who sees TV shows and ads, lost $65.5 million in three months, mostly because it marked down by $57.3 million the value it had assigned on paper to businesses it bought in the past. Its sales fell 4.1% even after leaving out a movie unit it sold in May, and it now has $19.5 million in cash and no bank debt. TV networks, broadcasters and agencies that use Comscore as an alternative to Nielsen are dealing with a smaller company that says it will start spending some of its savings on growth in 2027.

Revenue after the Movies sale

The results were published in a press release and furnished the same day to the Securities and Exchange Commission in a Form 8-K, signed by Mary Margaret Curry, Comscore's Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. The filing carries the full release, including the segment tables.

Those tables make the scale of the divestiture plain. The Movies business accounted for 10.7% of third-quarter 2025 revenue, according to PPC Land's calculation from the reported figures. Over the first nine months of 2025 it brought in $28.5 million; in 2026 it contributed $16.2 million before the sale closed. Total revenue for the nine months fell 8.8% to $240.7 million. Stripping out Movies revenue from both years gives $224.5 million against $235.5 million, a decline of 4.7% on PPC Land's arithmetic.

The pro forma trend has improved. In August, Comscore reported second-quarter revenue of $79.2 million, down 11.3%, and a pro forma decline of 8.5% to $73 million. Three months later, the pro forma decline was 4.1%, and third-quarter revenue of $76.2 million was roughly $3.2 million higher than the second quarter's pro forma figure, according to PPC Land's calculation. Comscore does not make that sequential comparison in its release.

Syndicated Audience

Comscore sells most of what it measures as syndicated research, the same audience data licensed to many subscribers. Syndicated Audience, the line that holds those products for TV, digital and, until May, movies, generated $52.4 million, or 68.9% of revenue. That was 17.0% below the $63.2 million of a year earlier. Without the $9.5 million of Movies revenue in the comparison, the decline narrows to 2.4%, according to PPC Land's calculation.

According to Comscore, the broader Content & Ad Measurement segment, which combines Syndicated Audience and Cross-Platform, fell 14.4%, or 2.1% on a pro forma basis. The company attributed this to lower Syndicated Audience revenue, "primarily related to the divestiture of the Movies business, as well as lower performance in syndicated digital products." The release does not separate TV revenue from digital revenue, so the direction of Comscore's TV business on its own cannot be read from the figures.

Cross-Platform and Proximic

Cross-Platform revenue was $12.2 million, down 0.9% from $12.3 million, a result Comscore describes as flat. The company said lower usage in Proximic, its activation business built on contextual advertising and ID-free audiences, was offset by new business in CCM, its Comscore Content Measurement product. That is the second quarter in a row in which Proximic usage fell. In August, Cross-Platform revenue was down 2.1% at $12.5 million on the same explanation.

Cross-Platform remains the only segment growing over nine months, up 7.4% to $37.3 million. Its share of quarterly revenue rose to 16.0% from 13.8%, though that shift owes as much to the removal of Movies revenue as to Cross-Platform's own performance.

Research & Insight Solutions

Research & Insight Solutions fell 13.9% to $11.5 million from $13.4 million. According to Comscore, the drop came from lower renewals and lower deliveries of certain custom digital products. The decline steepened from the 9.2% fall reported for the second quarter. Over nine months, the segment was down 8.7% at $35.2 million.

Costs: down 8%, with one exception

Core operating expenses, which Comscore defines as cost of revenues, sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative costs, were $79.6 million. That was 8.0% below the $86.6 million of the third quarter of 2025. Comscore credited lower employee compensation, data costs and facilities expense.

The reduction was uneven. Sales and marketing fell 22.6% to $11.3 million. Cost of revenues fell 10.3% to $47.3 million, and research and development fell 10.1% to $6.5 million. General and administrative expense went the other way, rising 20.9% to $14.6 million from $12.1 million. Stock-based compensation within general and administrative expense rose to $842,000 from $275,000, which accounts for part of the increase. The release does not explain the rest.

Cost of revenues fell more slowly than revenue. It absorbed 62.1% of revenue, against 59.4% a year earlier, on PPC Land's calculation. In practical terms, it cost Comscore proportionally more to deliver each dollar of data and services in the third quarter than a year before.

Against the second quarter, the decline in costs is steeper. Core operating expenses were $87.9 million in the three months to June, so the third quarter came in about $8.3 million lower. Part of that reflects the absence of the Movies business, which was still in the second-quarter numbers until late May. How much came from the plan, and how much from the departed unit? The release does not say. The $20 million to $25 million in annual run-rate savings that Comscore expects from its realignment plan works out at $5 million to $6.25 million a quarter.

Loss from operations was $66.8 million, against operating income of $1.7 million a year earlier. Excluding the goodwill charge and restructuring costs, Comscore would still have recorded an operating loss of about $4.0 million, according to PPC Land's calculation. Interest expense fell to $171,000 from $1.7 million, the clearest effect so far of the debt repayment completed in May.

Inside the $57.3 million goodwill charge

Goodwill is the premium a company records when it pays more for an acquisition than the identifiable assets are worth. Accounting rules require that figure to be tested, and written down when the business it relates to is judged to be worth less.

According to the release, management carried out an interim review of goodwill, citing in part "a decline in the Company's stock price and market capitalization and the implementation of the realignment plan in the third quarter." The release gives no share price and no valuation method. Comscore added that the charge "does not directly impact the Company's liquidity, cash flows, or future operations."

Goodwill stood at $248.6 million on December 31, 2025. By June 30, 2026, it had fallen to $185.3 million, in the quarter the Movies business was sold. On September 30, it was $127.9 million. The third-quarter decline of about $57.4 million is almost entirely the impairment. Over nine months, goodwill has fallen by 48.6%, and it still makes up 50.1% of Comscore's $255.0 million in total assets, according to PPC Land's calculation.

Other advertising businesses have taken similar charges in recent months. Teads recorded a $352.1 million non-cash goodwill impairment for the fourth quarter of 2025, and Ziff Davis wrote off $54.8 million against its Health & Wellness segment in the second quarter of 2026.

Equity and the preferred stock

The charge pushed the loss per common share to $(4.26), on a weighted average of 15.4 million shares. A year earlier, Comscore reported a loss per share of $(0.86) despite positive net income, because $4.97 million of dividends on its then-outstanding Series B convertible preferred stock were deducted first, on a weighted average of 5.3 million shares.

Stockholders' equity fell to $24.4 million from $111.4 million at the end of 2025, a drop of 78%. Classified between liabilities and equity on the balance sheet is Series C convertible redeemable preferred stock, 12,670,863 shares carried at $89.7 million with an aggregate liquidation preference of $183.7 million. That preference is about 7.5 times the remaining common equity, according to PPC Land's calculation. The accumulated deficit reached $1.52 billion.

Cash, debt and the balance sheet

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash totalled $19.5 million on September 30, of which $0.2 million was restricted. The figure was $28.7 million at the end of June, including $3.0 million restricted, and $26.8 million at the end of 2025. During the third quarter, Comscore paid $3.0 million related to its restructuring plan and $1.9 million in strategic transaction costs, most of them tied to the Movies sale.

Comscore now has no debt beyond finance leases on equipment. It repaid everything owed under its senior secured credit facility in May 2026. The nine-month cash flow statement shows $44.6 million in term loan principal payments and a $4.0 million loss on extinguishment of debt. Proceeds from the Movies divestiture came to $55.7 million net of cash transferred. In August, PPC Land reported a base purchase price of $70.0 million for the business.

Cash generation weakened. Net cash from operating activities was $5.7 million over nine months, against $19.5 million in the same period of 2025. Comscore kept capitalizing internal-use software at about the same pace, $16.7 million against $16.8 million, and spent $0.8 million on property and equipment. Subtracting both from operating cash flow gives free cash flow of minus $11.8 million for the nine months, against plus $2.1 million a year earlier, according to PPC Land's calculation. Comscore does not report free cash flow in the release.

Several other balance sheet lines moved sharply between December and September:

  • Accounts receivable fell 31.1% to $39.4 million from $57.3 million.
  • Contract liabilities, payments received for services not yet delivered, fell 14.0% to $31.4 million from $36.6 million.
  • Customer advances fell to $4.5 million from $7.6 million.
  • Accounts payable rose 32.6% to $22.5 million from $17.0 million.
  • Operating right-of-use assets roughly halved to $4.1 million, and non-current operating lease liabilities fell to $0.8 million from $6.2 million.
  • The non-current portion of accrued data costs fell to $19.6 million from $24.9 million.

The release does not say how much of the movement in receivables and contract liabilities came from the Movies sale. The lease figures sit alongside the company's statement that lower facilities expense helped reduce costs. Current liabilities of $111.8 million exceeded current assets of $75.0 million by $36.8 million, with contract liabilities making up most of the difference.

Guidance held, fourth quarter implied

Comscore kept its full-year outlook where it stood in August: revenue of $315 million to $325 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin "in the low-to-mid single digits." Curry set out the position in the release:

"We are in the early innings of executing our ROI strategy, which is rooted in building a foundation for long-term value creation, and we are already seeing signs of progress. Our outlook for the full year 2026 is unchanged, with revenue expected to be between $315 million and $325 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin in the low-to-mid single digits. We remain focused on our transformation efforts as we close out the year, and we are on track to generate the $20 to $25 million in annual run-rate cost savings we expected from our realignment plan. We plan to use a portion of these savings to execute our ROI strategy and invest in long-term growth opportunities as we move into 2027."

With $240.7 million booked through September, the range implies fourth-quarter revenue of $74.3 million to $84.3 million, according to PPC Land's calculation. The bottom of that range would be 2.5% below the third quarter, the top 10.7% above it. Comscore did not narrow the range.

The margin picture improved quarter on quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.3 million in the second quarter, a margin of 1.7%, before rising to $5.8 million and 7.6% in the third. For the nine months, adjusted EBITDA was $12.2 million, a margin of 5.1%, against $27.3 million and 10.3% in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA excludes, among other items, depreciation and amortization, impairment charges, stock-based compensation, restructuring and transformation costs, strategic transaction costs and gains or losses on the divestiture. Before those adjustments, EBITDA for the third quarter was minus $58.7 million.

Comscore gives no GAAP net income forecast. It said it cannot predict stock-based compensation, fair value adjustments, litigation and restructuring expense, strategic transaction costs and currency effects with reasonable certainty.

The ROI strategy, three months in

Comscore's board authorized the realignment plan on August 6, 2026, and the workforce reduction behind it was communicated on August 11. At the time, Comscore estimated exit costs of $7 million to $9 million, mostly severance, with implementation substantially complete in the third quarter of 2027. The $5.5 million restructuring charge in the third quarter leaves $1.5 million to $3.5 million of that estimate still to be booked, on PPC Land's arithmetic, if the estimate holds. Neither the August disclosure nor the November release states how many employees were affected.

Matt McLaughlin, whose appointment as chief executive took effect on May 28, described the quarter in the release:

"During the third quarter, we announced our transformational ROI strategy, which was designed to realign our business and cost structure, optimize our operations, and invest in higher-potential growth areas. Our team executed against this new operating model with a strong sense of urgency, allowing us to achieve significant cost savings in the quarter."

He added: "We are taking aggressive actions to rationalize our operational footprint and are focused on serving customers in our core business, as well as identifying and capitalizing on long-term growth opportunities in the evolving media landscape. I'm proud of the difficult work our team has done to execute against our plan and remain confident that we will exit the year well positioned to transform the business in 2027 and begin investing for long-term growth."

The release does not say what the "significant cost savings" amounted to in dollars, and it does not name any market where the footprint is shrinking. Spain is one place where the effects have already been visible. The Spanish industry body AIMC selected Comscore on July 10, 2026 as its recommended digital audience measurement provider from 2027, and PPC Land reported on August 19 that Comscore was cutting Spanish staff and that new leadership had frozen talks with AIMC to review the commitments attached to the selection. The third-quarter release is silent on Spain.

The forward-looking statements in the release also name two risks specific to the plan: "cash flow and liquidity challenges related to plan implementation and the loss of non-strategic revenue." The reference to non-strategic revenue signals that Comscore expects some revenue to fall away as it narrows its focus. The same list cites "evolving restrictions on data collection and matching" as a risk to customer and vendor relationships.

Where the investment is supposed to go

In August, Comscore named four investment priorities: next-generation audience measurement combining TV viewing data with US population modelling, AI prompt data for generative engine optimization, creator media measurement through its partnership with Spotter, and activation through Proximic. The third-quarter release does not report progress on any of them.

Product announcements since August map onto those priorities. In September, Comscore extended its AI Intelligence product to sponsored placements in ChatGPT, and on September 23 its age and gender demographics, with OpenAP audience segments to follow, were placed inside datafuelX's national TV workflows. In October, Comscore published audio listening data with TuneIn showing July minutes 36 billion below a year earlier, launched a monthly Score Report that put streaming at 22.3% of US TV ad exposure time, and on October 28 brought Proximic targeting into Magnite's SpringServe ad server. The third-quarter release does not attribute revenue to any of them.

The leadership changes have continued alongside the plan. Steve Bagdasarian, Chief Commercial Officer, was deemed to have resigned on August 10, 2026, and remains a strategic adviser to the chief executive until December 1, 2026.

Why the numbers matter beyond Comscore

Comscore is one of very few companies selling audience measurement that US networks, broadcasters and agencies use as a trading currency. A study commissioned by CIMM in January put the US national TV measurement market at $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year, with Nielsen holding 85% to 90%, and concluded that the market could support at least two competitors, while noting that switching costs are very high.

Comscore has spent the past year accumulating credentials for that second slot. Its national TV measurement received full certification in July 2025 from the US JIC, the joint industry committee of agencies and networks that vets measurement providers. In April, more than 15 broadcast clients, including Sinclair, E.W. Scripps and Cox Media Group, signed for its local products. Those agreements make the company's financial footing a practical question for the stations and agencies that rely on it, because a currency is only useful as long as its provider can keep paying for the panels and data behind it.

That is where the third-quarter cost lines become relevant to the market. Lower data costs were one of the three reasons Comscore gave for its reduced expenses. The release does not say which data sources or agreements changed, and so it is not possible to tell from the figures whether the coverage of any product has been affected.

The competitive backdrop shifted during the quarter too. On August 6, Nielsen agreed to acquire DoubleVerify for $13.60 a share, an enterprise value of about $2.15 billion, adding verification to the dominant TV currency provider. Rival outcome and spend measurement firms are also publishing quarterly data of their own: iSpot's third-quarter snapshot put streaming at 48.7% of US national TV ad spend but 21.9% of impressions. Two days after Comscore's second-quarter results, PPC Land's weekly analysis examined the restructuring alongside that week's repricing across ad tech.

A company that sells the count, with $19.5 million in cash, no bank debt, and a cost base it is still cutting, is a different counterparty from the one that signed many of those agreements. Whether the $20 million to $25 million in savings is enough to fund the measurement investment McLaughlin describes for 2027, while revenue outside the Movies business is still declining, is the question the fourth quarter will start to answer.

What the release does not say

Several points that would matter to customers and partners are absent from the November 3 disclosure:

  • The number of employees affected by the realignment, and which countries or offices are being closed.
  • The dollar value of savings achieved in the third quarter.
  • Profitability by segment, or how much of the cost decline came from the Movies sale rather than the plan.
  • Revenue from CCM, or usage figures for Proximic.
  • The share price or valuation assumptions behind the goodwill test.
  • The reason for the 20.9% increase in general and administrative expense.
  • Any update on Spain and AIMC.

Comscore scheduled a conference call for 5:00 p.m. ET on November 3, 2026, with supplemental information posted on its investor relations site.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Comscore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), the Reston, Virginia media measurement company, led by Chief Executive Officer Matt McLaughlin and Chief Financial Officer Mary Margaret Curry. The results matter to the TV networks, local broadcasters, agencies and publishers that buy or trade on Comscore data and Proximic targeting.

What: A third-quarter net loss of $65.5 million, driven by a $57.3 million non-cash goodwill impairment and $5.5 million of restructuring costs. Revenue fell 14.3% to $76.2 million, or 4.1% excluding the Movies business sold in May. Adjusted EBITDA was $5.8 million, cash $19.5 million, and full-year guidance of $315 million to $325 million was reaffirmed.

When: The results were released and furnished to the SEC in a Form 8-K on November 3, 2026, covering the quarter ended September 30, 2026, with a conference call at 5:00 p.m. ET the same day.

Where: Comscore is based in Reston, Virginia. Its measurement business is centred on US TV and digital media, and its cost-cutting plan has already touched operations abroad, including Spain.

Why: Comscore said a lower share price and market capitalization, together with the realignment plan, triggered the goodwill review. The plan aims to save $20 million to $25 million a year and fund growth investments from 2027, while the company competes with Nielsen for TV currency business with a smaller balance sheet and declining revenue outside the Movies unit it sold.