Rentrak sees strong AMI performance in fourth quarter

The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $24.7m, compared with $25m a year ago. Advanced Media Information (AMI) sales – covering TV and on-demand viewing data and stats on cinema visits – were $9m, helped by recent acquisitions. But stripping out acquisition-related revenue, growth in the division was still 16%.

AMI’s gross margin was down 11 percentage points to 62% because of “higher fixed costs associated with obtaining data for the company’s TV business”.

Home entertainment revenue fell from $18.1m to $15.7m and operating losses for the period increased from $0.2m to $0.8m.

Full-year revenue increased 6.6% to $97.1m, while operating losses rose from $0.9m to $2.6m.

CEO Bill Livek said: “Rentrak successfully strengthened its market position in fiscal 2011 by providing relevant and innovative database measurement services to an expanding roster of clients throughout the advertising, television and entertainment industries.

“Although our fourth-quarter results did not meet my expectations, we are making substantial progress against our plan.”