Dish Turns To Rentrak For Audience Measurement

Dish Network has struck a deal with Rentrak Corp., which will use set-top data from millions of boxes to measure the satellite provider’s audience, the companies said Monday.


The satellite service reached an agreement for Rentrak’s TV Essentials, which will deliver anonymous viewer-measurement data from the satellite provider’s boxes, including second-by-second television programming and advertising information.

Dish Network will use Rentrak’s TV Essentials reporting system together with other Dish Network tools to analyze anonymous audience viewing of programming and advertising for linear television and to generate detailed viewer measurement information.

Dish Network selected Rentrak’s TV Essentials service as a means to gain further insight into subscriber viewing preferences. TV Essentials is integrated with the Dish Network traffic and billing systems for ad placement information, giving Dish Network and its advertising partners performance intelligence by campaign, program and individual advertisement. TV Essentials will also report on Dish Network DVR and iTV reporting and analysis.


"Advertisers are clamoring for this level of reporting to gain insights and to increase efficiencies in this age of increased accountability,” Michael Finn, Dish Network’s vice president of advertising sales, said in a statement. “This reporting will make a significant difference for advertisers across all of our current and future initiatives, and will allow us to make more informed internal programming and marketing decisions.”

 Added Rentrak president Cathy Hetzel: "We are pleased to work with Dish Network as their audience measurement service provider. Rentrak’s TV Essentials system provides valuable intelligence that will help define the future of television audience measurement."