Rentrak Introduces New TV Analytics Product

Audience measurement firm Rentrak introduced a new analytic platform it says gives clients the ability to analyze viewing patterns, advertising exposure and product usage.

Rentrak says the new product, dubbed Rubik, is already being used by 10 major national networks and one major agency holding company.

Data is the big buzzword in the TV advertising business now, and Rentrak, a competitor to the dominant audience measurement provider Nielsen, is offering its suite of ratings—which start with set-top box data, as an alternative source of granular information about TV viewership and commercial effectiveness.

“Rubik is the ultimate tool for optimized planning and TV buying at a national level,” Rentrak CEO Bill Livek said in a statement.

“Do you remember playing for hours and weeks on end as a child with the Rubik’s Cube? I remember being amazed by its complexity and, yet, its simplicity,” Livek said. “ Our new analytics platform has taken something very complex—TV viewing merged with the products viewers buy, how they vote, and the cars they drive—and made it simple. Think about a cube, not with nine boxes on a side, but with an endless number on each side. Rubik allows clients to perform complex analytics that help unlock the value of television programming and advertising content with viewers as the target.”

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.