Gracenote
Gracenote, Inc. is a company and service that provides music, video and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies, worldwide.[3] Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Base"), Gracenote maintains and licenses an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio compact discs and vinyl records. From 2008 to 2014, it was owned by Sony, later sold to Tribune Media, and has been owned since 2017 by Nielsen Holdings. In 2019, Nielsen Holdings announced plans to split into two separate publicly traded companies, Nielsen Global Connect and Nielsen Global Media. In October 2022, Nielsen Holdings completed sale of Global Media, which included the Gracenote division, was sold to a private equity consortium.
For other uses, see Grace note (disambiguation).Formerly
Compact Disc Data Base (1998–2000)
October 5, 1998[1]
- Sujit Dasmunshi(General Manager)
- Tim Cutting (CRO)
- Trent Wheeler (CPO)
- Roger Rached (CTO)
- Music Data
- Video Data
- Sports Data
- Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) Technology
- Digital Video Fingerprinting
- Acoustic Fingerprinting
$98.76 million (2014)[2]
1,700+ (2016)
History[edit]
Gracenote began in 1993 as an open-source project involving a CD player program named xmcd and an associated database named CDDB. xmcd and CDDB were created by Ti Kan and Steve Scherf. Because CDs do not contain any digitally-encoded information about their contents, Kan and Scherf devised a technology that identifies and looks up CDs based on TOC information stored at the beginning of each disc. A TOC, or Table of Contents, is a list of offsets corresponding to the start of each track on a CD. Its original database was created from and continues to receive voluntary contributions from users. This led to a licensing controversy when Gracenote became commercialized.
On April 22, 2008, Sony announced that it would acquire Gracenote for $260 million.[4] The acquisition was completed on June 2, 2008.[5]
On September 9, 2010, Gracenote received its one-billionth piece of data, with a submission about the Compact Disc release of Swans' My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.[6]
On December 23, 2013, Sony announced it would sell Gracenote to Tribune Media for $170 million. The acquisition closed in February 2014: Gracenote was aligned with the Tribune Media Services division which focused on TV and Movie metadata and IDs.[7][8]
On June 12, 2014, Tribune Media Services merged with Gracenote to form one company under the Gracenote name.[9]
On July 9, 2014, Tribune Media Company purchased What's-ON, a provider of TV data and advanced search offerings covering India and the Middle East for $27 million.[10]
On September 3, 2014, Gracenote acquired Baseline, a Los Angeles–based provider of film and TV data and information. Baseline had previously been owned by the NY Times from 2006–2011 after which it was sold back to its original owners. This $50 million purchase deepened Gracenote's existing video datasets and added the Studio System database, a subscription-based resource for the Hollywood content creation and distribution communities, to its line-up of offerings.[11]
On October 2, 2014, Gracenote purchased Australia-based TV and movie data company HWW for $19 million US to expand its Asia Pacific presence and international offerings.[12]
On May 28, 2015, Gracenote acquired Amsterdam-based Infostrada Sports and Halifax-based SportsDirect, providers of music, video and sports data.[13]
On December 20, 2016, Tribune Media announced that it was selling Gracenote to Nielsen Holdings for $540 million in cash.[14] The deal officially closed on February 1, 2017.[15] In September 2017, Gracenote partnered with Connekt and Ensequence to deliver real-time offers on smart TVs.[16]
On November 7, 2019, Nielsen announced that it was splitting into to separate publicly traded companies.[17] Gracenote fell under the company's Global Media business.
In October 2022, they were sold to a private equity consortium in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $16 billion, including the assumption of debt.[18]
Customers[edit]
iTunes, Media Go, Sonicstage, Groove Music and Windows Media Player all use or have used Gracenote's CD track identification services.[28][29][30] [31] In addition, Gracenote provides or provided its products to a number of other services including online services like Yahoo! Music Jukebox, AOL, AmazonMP3, Spotify, Winamp, MetroLyrics, Pandora, Google Music;[32], home and automotive products such as those from Alpine, Bose, or Panasonic; mobile music applications from Samsung and others,[33] Sony Mobile Communication (TrackID, Sony Movies/Video & TV SideView App for Xperia Through Gracenote Video Explore and Sony Music Walkman App for Xperia),[34] and the ACR technology into the car audio systems for Tesla, BMW, Nissan and several other car makers.