NBC Universal, Rentrak sign Web usage deal

Agreement expands partnership started in January

By Danny King -- Video Business, 3/3/2009

MARCH 3 | NBC Universal will use Rentrak's audience-measurement service to track how many people are downloading digital content from the NBC Universal licensees, expanding Rentrak’s relationship with the General Electric unit and marking Rentrak's continued expansion of its audience-measurement unit as sales flatten at its primary DVD distribution business.

Rentrak, which agreed in January to provide mobile-video measurement services for NBC Universal, had already been in a trial period for measuring the network’s digital-content demand, Rentrak said in a statement last week. Rentrak didn't disclose the licensees and didn't say whether the agreement covers Hulu, the Web-television site owned by NBC Universal and News Corp.

“We are very pleased to further expand our relationship with NBCU, a leading provider of television content, by providing timely, accurate and unbiased tracking and reporting of digital download activity to provide daily, direct access to the data needed to make informed business decisions,” Marty Graham, president of Rentrak’s home entertainment division, said in the statement.

Last month, Rentrak said its fiscal third-quarter earnings doubled from a year earlier on both a surge in sales for its media audience-tracking services and a tax benefit. Rentrak's advanced media information division sales surged 20% from a year earlier and accounted for a third of Rentrak's gross profit, while sales from its primary pay-per-transaction division fell 7%.

In November, Rentrak signed an agreement for its viewer-measurement services with Dish Network, the No. 2 U.S. satellite-television service to DirecTV. Rentrak's TV Essentials service tracks audience data from 9 million set-top boxes, up from the 20,000 set-top boxes tracked when the service launched 18 months ago, CEO Paul Rosenbaum said earlier this month.