Rentrak in VOD Measurement Deal with Canada's Alliance Films

Multiscreen media measurement and research company, Rentrak, announced last week that it has signed a deal to provide Canadian motion picture distributor, Alliance Films, with VOD measurement services via its OnDemand Essentials service. Alliance's recent VOD offerings--which are available on such major Canadian pay-TV platforms as Cogeco Cable, MTS, Rogers Cable, SaskTel, Shaw Cable, Telus and Videotron--include "Inglourious Basterds," "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," "Four Christmases" and "Coraline." According to Rentrak, the Alliance deal means that it "continues to build its leadership position in providing measurement services" for the Canadian VOD market, where it claims to have seen a 19% increase in on-demand content usage between 2008 and 2009. "We are pleased to be working with Alliance Films and to have the OnDemand Essentials service be the source to assist them in leading the category," Carol Hinnant, Rentrak's SVP of business development for advanced media, said in a prepared statement. "By using OnDemand Essentials, Alliance Films will be able to better analyze how viewers consume their content so they can maximize their future viewership and revenue opportunities with both new movie releases and library titles."

Rentrak bills OnDemand Essentials as providing operators, content providers and advertisers with a transactional tracking and reporting system for analyzing on-demand content. According to the company, clients of the service have password-protected, near-real-time, browser-based 24/7 access to on-demand consumer usage data at various access levels, based on business and privacy rules. It claims that a "sophisticated toolset" aggregates and reports data across multiple vendors in "one easy-to-use report system," and that clients can instantly analyze and interpret their own business data, in order to identify trends and program and promote their VOD offerings more effectively.