The Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) and BPA Worldwide plan to merge after the organizations’ respective boards of directors unanimously approved the plan for the two not-for-profit media auditing organizations to join forces.

The merged organization plans to leverage each entity’s complementary expertise to provide an all-inclusive suite of services to increase transparency and accountability, differentiate high-quality media outlets and service providers, and allow buyers to choose quality and maximize ROI. This will be done across channels — websites, newsletters, events, print, out-of-home, podcasts and ad tech — and across compliance areas such as advertising, editorial, privacy and sustainability.

AAM and BPA members will vote on the merger in January 2023. Pending member and regulatory approval, the merger is expected to be completed in spring 2023. AAM’s CEO and managing director, Tom Drouillard, will be CEO of the new to-be-named organization. BPA’s CEO, Rich Murphy, will be president.

The Alliance for Audited Media has more than 100 years of audit experience and is recognized by the industry for its expertise in cross-channel verification in North America. BPA Worldwide has been providing assurance of media audience claims for more than 80 years, originally created by advertisers, agencies and the media industry to audit audience claims.