--Deal Follows a Year-Long Trial
Following a year-long trial, MSO Comcast has decided to continue using the OnDemand Essentials service from Portland, Oregon-based business intelligence company, Rentrak. (Note: OnDemand Essentials is a Web-based ASP service which measures and reports anonymous, aggregate VOD usage data, such as viewership volumes and trends, 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 has announced trial deployments of the service with Charter and Cablevision that should result in commercial deployments. The service is also used by cable MSO, Insight, and by programmers, Music Choice and Mag Rack.) The MSO has signed a multi-year, non-exclusive deal with Rentrak that will see it using OnDemand Essentials to, among other things, identify the programs that most interest users of its VOD service, Comcast On Demand, and gauge the effectiveness of its promotional and marketing initiatives. According to Rentrak, Comcast's advertising sales division, Comcast Spotlight, plans to use reports generated by the service to support its planned nationwide roll- out of VOD advertising products. "Based on data collected by Rentrak during the past year, we've been able to more quickly analyze the response to On Demand content and fine-tune our programming mix to better meet the needs of our customers," Page Thompson, VP and general manager of Comcast On Demand, said in a prepared statement. "We're looking forward to continuing our relationship with Rentrak and working together to take On Demand to the next level."
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