Rentrak in VOD Measurement Deal with Cinelatino

Multiscreen media measurement and research company, Rentrak, announced Tuesday that it has signed a multi-year deal with Spanish-language premium movie channel, Cinelatino, that will see the latter using its OnDemand Essentials VOD measurement service in order to gain more insight into the preferences of its viewers. "The Hispanic population is the largest and fastest-growing demographic group in the US and OnDemand Essentials will provide Cinelatino with key information needed to meet the growing demand for quality Spanish-language content on the on-demand platform," Carol Hinnant, SVP of business development for Rentrak's Advanced Media and Information division, said in a prepared statement. "With almost 20 different VOD channels targeted at the Hispanic market, Rentrak's OnDemand Essentials service provides the necessary knowledge and trends to help programmers targeting the Hispanic demographic get a competitive edge by understanding what resonates with consumers."

According to Rentrak, OnDemand Essentials processes daily, census-level on-demand data, representing 70 million set-top boxes, from 33 MSO's (including all the top-25 operators) that offer VOD. The service is subscribed to by over 125 content providers, the company says.

In other VOD news:

• Quebec-based MSO, Videotron, said last week that it has signed agreements with CBS Studios International, NBC Universal and Fox that will enable it to bring 10 popular US series to the VOD platform of its illico digital TV service. According to the company, the deals will enable it to provide VOD access to 300 episodes of "Medium," "Shark," "Numbers," the original "Beverly Hills 90210," "Prison Break" and "24"; and will enable it to add 180 episodes of the current series "House," "Heroes," "Las Vegas" and "Monk" next month. The series are available in standard-definition for CAN$4.99 for a seven-day rental of three episodes. "Videotron is enhancing its offerings by adding, in the original English version or in French, some of the best television ever produced," Suzanne Laverdiere, Videotron's senior director of VOD, said in a prepared statement. "Videotron continues to expand and diversify its selection of drama programming, which also includes television series from Quebec, English Canada and Europe."
• In a briefing with the AP earlier this week, Comcast provided more information on On Demand Online, its implementation of the "TV Everywhere" model, which it plans to launch commercially later this year (note: the "TV Everywhere" model, which has long been championed by Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, seeks to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on multiple platforms, and thus aims to head off the threat posed to pay-TV services by the increasing availability of over-the-top programming--for more background, see the articles published on itvt.com, April 30th, May 14th, June 25th and July 15th). Among other things, the MSO said that the service will initially be available, via its Fancast and Comcast.net portals, only to customers who are also subscribers to its Internet service and only on those customers' home PC. It also said that some of its cable partners are planning to offer only current programs on the service, while others are also planning to offer archive programming; that the service will launch with a different name; and that it expects the availability of the service to enable it to offer more and different advertising on its portals. The AP article is available here.