NEWS27 June 2012

Rentrak wins Sinclair business from Nielsen following acquisition

New business North America

US— Rentrak is to replace Nielsen as the audience measurement service for four local television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The deal follows the $200m acquisition of the stations by Sinclair from Four Points Media Group in January.

Under the terms of the deal, Rentrak will provide its StationView Essentials service for the channels in Salt Lake City (CBS and MNT affiliate), West Palm Beach (CW and Azteca), Providence, (CW) and Austin (CBS and TEL).

In addition, the agreement with Rentrak also covers WPEC, Sinclair’s CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach, extending the existing relationship Sinclair already has with Rentrak covering 12 other television markets.

Sinclair’s COO Steve Marks said: “The relatively large database size provided by Rentrak’s service provides for much greater ratings stability and predictability than would otherwise be obtainable, at a very fair price. We plan to evaluate whether or not to make similar moves in other markets when our contracts with Nielsen come up for renewal in the near future.”

Rentrak is led by CEO Bill Livek (pictured). Its audience measurement service is based on viewing data collected from cable and satellite set-top boxes whereas Nielsen’s measurement is based on sampled panels of metered or self-reporting homes.

@RESEARCH LIVE

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