--Signs up Six New Customers for OnDemand Essentials
Portland, Oregon-based business intelligence company, Rentrak, has announced plans to trial a prototype platform for measuring viewing of mobile TV. Dubbed Mobile TV Essentials (note: Rentrak is best-known to [itvt] readers for its OnDemand Essentials service which measures VOD viewership and usage), the new platform was developed in collaboration with Hiwire, a mobile TV company that is a subsidiary of Aloha Partners, the largest owner of 700MHz spectrum in the US, and with various Hiwire partners, including SES Americom, RRD USA and a number of mobile carriers, as well as with a number of traditional entertainment industry experts. The platform incorporates a special module, customized to integrate into Hiwire's mobile usage monitoring platform. According to the participating companies, the goals of the trial--which will take place in Las Vegas concurrently with HiWire's first deployment of its mobile TV service--include refining the feature set of Mobile TV Essentials and establishing a mobile TV reporting standard. The trial, which is scheduled to begin this summer, will see Rentrak ingesting anonymous mobile TV viewing data from Hiwire, in order to provide Web-based statistical reporting. Rentrak will serve as Hiwire's primary data analytics and third-party verification provider, delivering audience viewing metrics (e.g. total viewers) of linear video programming and linear video advertising watched on mobile phones. "As consumer viewing habits and media delivery platforms continue to expand, Rentrak remains at the forefront of introducing new transaction-based measurement tools that will span every method of television, film and advertising content distribution," Ken Papagan, Rentrak's president and chief strategy officer, said in a prepared statement. "While mobile entertainment viewing is in the early stages, Rentrak's entry into mobile TV viewing measurement is another example of how we are leading the media measurement industry to be ready with a comprehensive suite of analytical tools required by the multiscreen viewing environment."
Rentrak says that the trial and the collaboration with the mobile industry that it entails will help it to establish a strategic foothold in the mobile content space, and enhance its ability to track linear and on-demand television on multiple distribution platforms. According to the company, Mobile TV Essentials will provide content providers with access to a census-level audience measurement system, enabling trial participants to perform in-depth analysis of their content and its viewers, including near real-time viewership, demographics analysis, geographic analysis and audience sharing and audience overlap. The new platform also has the capacity to employ Rentrak's VOD reporting system on mobile platforms, the company says, and will allow programmers, advertisers, operators and carriers to get immediate answers to questions that traditionally require extensive market research and consumer panel studies. The trial will feature a range of branded TV networks, video and audio content, and interactive data services delivered to mobile phones via Aloha's 700MHz spectrum.
In other Rentrak news: the company says that six new network groups, collectively representing 17 VOD services, have signed multi-year deals for its OnDemand Essentials VOD measurement system. The new deals--with BET Networks, Blue Highways TV, Discovery Networks, Fox Cable Network, Lifetime Entertainment and Shalom TV--mean that a total of 66 content providers are using its service, including studios, cable and broadcast networks, and VOD-only providers (and including providers of transactional VOD, subscription VOD, free VOD, and real-time encoded services). The data used by the service is provided by Rentrak's operator partners: Atlantic Broadband, Armstrong, Bresnan, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Elijay Telephone, Insight, Service Electric Cablevision, Suddenlink, Verizon FiOS and WOW.
Originally Published: May 30, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.32 Part 2
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