Rentrak Adds DISH Data to TV Figures

In the US, multi-screen measurement specialist Rentrak has established an agreement to integrate TV viewing data from satellite firm DISH Network's 14 million subscribers, with its own TV Essentials audience measurement service.

DISH Network provides more than 14 million satellite TV customers with access to hundreds of video and audio channels. In addition, the firm offers 'high engagement' interactive TV, niche and custom network viewership, as well as the ability to present relevant commercial content to viewers on a geographic or psychographic basis.

Rentrak claims the partnership will enable it to become the only company to offer set-top-box media measurement in all 210 TV markets - with more than 15 million TVs nationwide, when combined with telco TV and cable viewing information.

Prior to this agreement, Rentrak's TV Essentials service was based on set-top-box data from 2 million AT&T U-verse homes in 36 markets.

'With this partnership, Rentrak has fulfilled its vision of providing a national footprint to overlay advertisers' definition of their customers to detailed TV viewing from digital set devices,' stated Rentrak CEO Bill Livek. 'With this massive national data set comprised of anonymous, second-by-second viewing information, TV Essentials is the only fully integrated service that can merge advertisers' segmentation systems and their proprietary customer definitions.'

Last week, Rentrak and Harris Interactive teamed up to study consumer usage habits for mobile digital TV on behalf of The Open Mobile Video Coalition.

Web sites: www.rentrak.com and www.DISHnetwork.com .