Bresnan to Use Rentrak's OnDemand Essentials

Portland, Oregon-based business intelligence company, Rentrak, says that cable operator, Bresnan Communications, has signed an agreement to use its OnDemand Essentials product. (Note: OnDemand Essentials is a Web-based ASP service which measures and reports anonymous, aggregate VOD usage data, and which is intended to provide cable operators, content providers and advertisers with customizable reports designed to help them better understand viewers' VOD content preferences. Rentrak recently announced trial deployments of the service with Charter and Cablevision that should result in commercial deployments, and also recently announced a commercial deployment with Comcast. In addition, OnDemand Essentials is used by cable MSO, Insight, and by programmers, Music Choice and Mag Rack.) Bresnan will feed anonymous, encoded VOD transaction data into OnDemand Essentials via C-COR's nABLE On Demand Management Platform (note: C-COR acquired the platform through its purchase of nCUBE last December), allowing Rentrak to provide it with reports. According to Rentrak's SVP of OnDemand Essentials, Cathy Hetzel, the Bresnan deal is "significant because it represents the first time the Rentrak system has incorporated measurement of on demand content usage derived from" the nABLE platform.

The deal foresees an initial one-year trial of OnDemand Essentials by Bresnan, during which technical data feed protocols and reporting formats will be developed, and staff training and other ramp-up activities will be conducted. According to Rentrak, the trial period will allow it to customize OnDemand Essentials for Bresnan and its content suppliers. "Now that almost half of Bresnan Communications' subscribers have access to video-on-demand content, it is an increasingly important content distribution channel for us and therefore extremely important to have the ability to precisely measure transactions," Bresnan's VP of operations, Jim Gemmill, said in a prepared statement. "Rentrak will enable us to more accurately monitor and analyze on-demand viewing preferences so that we can further enhance our video-on-demand offerings to our customers." Bresnan's VOD service currently offers around 1,200 hours of programming per month, including subscription-based services from HBO and Showtime, and free content from Kids Unlimited, the NFL Network and DIY.

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