Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Rentrak Announces Trial With Charter Communications

- Rentrak's TV Essentials System to Include Data from the Nation's Fourth Largest Cable Provider To Analyze Relationship Between On Demand and Linear Viewing Trends -

PORTLAND, Ore., March 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Rentrak Corporation (Nasdaq: RENT) today announced it has reached an agreement with Charter Communications to begin a linear TV measurement trial. The trial, utilizing Rentrak's TV Essentials service will focus on the relationship between linear television and on demand viewing patterns.

Rentrak's TV Essentials system is a comprehensive suite of research tools that enables customers to analyze anonymous and aggregate audience viewing of programming and advertising for linear television. Features of TV Essentials include reports on audience flow, audience retention, day part analysis, and series/title comparison summarized at a national or market level.

"With the addition of the Charter data, Rentrak is uniquely qualified to provide unparalleled linear television insights," said Sandra Kilbridge, vice president of operations, Advanced Media and Information (AMI) division at Rentrak. "As the industry continues to demand greater accountability, Rentrak is leading the way to deliver timely, accurate, multi-platform media measurement."

"Consumers ultimately benefit from a better understanding of linear and on-demand television viewing habits through improved programming and easier access to that programming," said Jim Heneghan, Charter's Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales.

Rentrak's TV Essentials system processes data from more than seven million set top boxes to help advertising agencies, networks and local stations make business decisions to drive increased revenue. In addition to the TV Essentials system, Rentrak processes on demand television data representing more than 54 million set top boxes.

About TV Essentials(R)

Rentrak's TV Essentials is a comprehensive suite of research tools that enable customers to analyze anonymous audience viewing of programming and advertising across VOD, DVR, interactive and linear television. Utilizing proprietary technology to process massive amounts of click-stream data, the TV Essentials system is able to aggregate and report second-by-second information from millions of digital set-top boxes. The system can isolate individual market, network, series, or telecast performance, administer national and local estimates, and provide an evaluation of influencing factors such as psychographics and demographics.

About Rentrak Corporation

Rentrak Corporation, based in Portland, Oregon, is an information management company serving clients in the media, entertainment, retail, and advertising industries. The company's Entertainment Essentials(TM) suite of services is redefining media measurement in the digital broadband era. Entertainment Essentials provides customers with near-real-time, actionable insight into performance of content distributed over a wide variety of modern media technologies. Available by license or subscription, each Entertainment Essentials application allows executives to analyze detailed industry-wide and title-specific data to make decisions that enhance the bottom line and provide competitive advantage. For further information, please visit Rentrak's corporate Web site at Rentrak.com.

    Contact for Rentrak Corporation:
    Sallie Olmsted / Amanda Bartz
    Office: 310-854-8124 / 310-854-8151
    E-mail: solmsted@rogersandcowan.com / abartz@rogersandcowan.com

[Via http://www.prnewswire.com]