Comcast and Rentrak to Trial Video on Demand Measurement System
PORTLAND, Ore., Mar 23, 2004 --
A note from Paul Rosenbaum, Chairman and CEO of Rentrak Corporation:
I'm very excited to share with you today's announcement by Rentrak and Comcast that Comcast will begin using Rentrak's VOD Essentials™ service to carry out a one year trial program to measure and report aggregate VOD consumption, scheduled to begin in May, 2004. Of all the announcements we've made in the past three and a half years since I became Chairman and CEO of Rentrak, this is by far the most satisfying for two reasons. The first reason is that we are extremely excited to be working with Comcast, the largest cable and broadband company in the U.S., to demonstrate the power of our independent third-party aggregation services. Secondly, by rolling out VOD Essentials, we have definitively proven Rentrak's ability to scale its robust systems to different business sectors.
This marks an important milestone for Rentrak and is the result of many months of investment in systems and relationship-building with Comcast and other key players in the growing VOD market. Rentrak also staged a three-month evaluation demonstration that contributed positively toward the decision to become a trial participant.
The media industry will watch closely because VOD Essentials' reporting capability represents an entirely new method of media measurement with the potential to make obsolete the sampling methods used historically. Sampling -- the process of capturing viewer behavior from a small pool of viewers and extrapolating those results across an entire population -- has been sufficient for the broadcast world that has defined the first 60 years of television. But the advancement of technology is now enabling the television/cable industry to provide content on demand, whenever a subscriber wants to watch it. This shift towards a "transactional" consumption model requires exact measurement of what was, and was not watched. In this context sampling simply does not go far enough for programming and advertisers needs. This reality will become increasingly acute as more programming is "played" digitally off a computer server over the next several years.
For the new world of VOD movies, television programs and on-demand advertising, census-level reporting -- capturing standardized, uniform information about every program requested on VOD aggregated anonymously by market level -- and making that information available to programmers and cable operators on a real-time basis -- is critical to enabling the cable VOD business to flourish. Programmers and advertisers alike are looking to an independent third party that can aggregate the usage data from several operator sources and aggregate them into a single universal reporting system that represents their entire market. In turn, this timely data will be more "actionable" for programmers enabling them to more effectively market content to consumers.
Rentrak is well positioned as an experienced, independent third-party aggregator to fulfill critical needs of the VOD market:
- To ensure unbiased reporting, the industry needs an aggregator without a vested interest in the businesses involved in the content, advertising or distribution.
- The industry needs an aggregator with extensive media usage measurement experience to speed time to market and reduce costs of measurement tracking and reporting.
- Each category supplier (movie studios, cable and television programmers and advertisers) has different tracking and reporting needs & requirements.
- Content providers (e.g. movie studios, programmers and advertisers) require the ability to access coordinated, interrelated "one stop reporting".
Rentrak has been providing highly similar capabilities to the theatrical, home video and videogame industry for years. In short, we believe today's announcement with Comcast marks the beginning of a new era for the media and advertising industry, and the role Rentrak will play in it.
Rest assured we'll be working hard to ensure a successful VOD Essentials trial. It paves the path to new, potentially substantial revenue for Rentrak and puts us one step closer to offering VOD Essentials to all providers and programmers in North America and around the world.
Together with the other components of our growing suite of Essentials™ services -- Box Office Essentials™, Home Video Essentials™, Business Intelligence Essentials™ (formerly Calendar Essentials), Retail Sales Essentials™, and Supply Chain Essentials™ -- we are firmly establishing Rentrak as a leading information management and business intelligence provider and dramatically increasing the number of potential customers that can benefit from our services.
We appreciate your continued interest in Rentrak.
PORTLAND, Ore., and PHILADELPHIA, March 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Comcast, the country's leading cable and broadband communications provider, and Rentrak Corporation today announced an agreement to conduct a trial of VOD Essentials™, a system created by Rentrak that measures and reports anonymous video-on-demand (VOD) usage data.
The trial is scheduled to begin in May in the Philadelphia area. VOD Essentials will deliver an in-depth analysis of aggregate VOD viewership data that will help multiple system operators (MSOs) and programmers analyze data to better understand viewer preferences for on-demand content.
"As video on demand continues to experience tremendous growth, we recognize the importance of accurately measuring viewership, and this trial is the first step toward that goal," said Page Thompson, Vice President, Marketing, New Video Products for Comcast. "We're looking forward to working with our content partners and Rentrak to develop standardized reporting metrics that will provide valuable data to operators and programmers."
Added Ken Papagan, Executive Vice President, New Business Development and Strategic Planning at Rentrak, "Comcast's foresight to recognize an industry need to capture and analyze VOD content performance data, at a market-to-market level, is another indicator of Comcast's consistent leadership within the cable industry. We are very pleased that Comcast selected Rentrak and VOD Essentials to participate in this very important trial that will help pave the way toward more efficient and accurate VOD usage measurement."
Comcast's ON DEMAND VOD service currently is available to approximately 50 percent of the company's customers. Offering customers more than 1,800 programming choices, including shows from leading cable and broadcast networks as well as movie and premium provider content, the service is expected to be available to 80 percent of Comcast's customers by year-end 2004.
About OnDemand Essentials
OnDemand Essentials®, a service of Rentrak's Advanced Media & Information Division, provides cable operators, content providers (including broadcast/cable networks, studios) and advertisers with a transactional tracking and reporting system to view and analyze on-demand content. The product is an extension of Rentrak's Essentials suite of business intelligence products customized for the entertainment industry. OnDemand Essentials clients have password protected, near real-time, web browser-based 24x7access to on demand consumer usage data at various access levels based on business and privacy rules. A sophisticated toolset aggregates and reports data across multiple vendors in one easy to use report system. Clients using the OnDemand Essentials system are able to instantly analyze and interpret their own business data to identify trends, program and promote more effectively by identifying trends, as well as track their performance against the broader business sector in which they operate.
About Rentrak Corporation
Rentrak Corporation (Nasdaq: RENT) is an industry-advancing media measurement and research company, serving the most recognizable names in the entertainment industry. Reaching across numerous platforms including box office, home entertainment, on-demand and linear television, broadband and mobile, Rentrak provides unique and actionable insight for our clients and partners. From the introduction of our revolutionary Pay-Per-Transaction® distribution and revenue-sharing system, which equipped Rentrak with the intelligence and ability to deal with large, complex data streams, to the company's exclusive Essentials™ suite of services, Rentrak has redefined digital audience measurement. Rentrak is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with additional offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Miami/ Ft. Lauderdale. For more information on any of Rentrak's services, please visit www.rentrak.com.
About Comcast
Headquartered in Philadelphia, Comcast Cable is a division of Comcast Corporation,
a developer, manager and operator of broadband cable networks and provider of
programming content. With a presence in 22 of the top 25 United States markets,
Comcast is one of the leading communications, media and entertainment companies
in the world. Providing basic cable, Digital Cable, high-speed Internet and
telephone services, Comcast is the company to look to first for the communications
products and services that connect people to what's important in their lives.
The company's 59,000 employees serve more than 21 million customers.
Rentrak - Sallie Olmsted / 310-201-8824
Comcast - Jenni Moyer / 215-851-3311
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