Video-On-Demand is the Fastest Growing Alternative TV Delivery Platform

PORTLAND, Ore., April 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- RENTRAK CORPORATION (NASDAQ: RENT), the leader in multi-screen media measurement serving the advertising, television and entertainment industries, today announced the availability of the Rentrak State of VOD: Trend Report 2011. The report, which is based on an aggregation of data from Rentrak's OnDemand Essentials service, shows that video-on-demand (VOD) is at the tipping point of becoming a major ad medium. The report shows that Free-On-Demand (FOD) content, which are programs that run on ad-supported broadcast, cable and on-demand only networks, experienced 17% growth in 2011 to 6.8 billion transactions. With an average of 5 hours and 17 FOD television shows or videos watched per month, the potential value of the ad inventory in these programs is at least one billion dollars, based on Rentrak estimates.

The on-demand platform is an excellent growth opportunity for increased ad revenue with more than 55 million U.S. homes with access to VOD and the average home spending 8 hours per month watching VOD content. The majority of VOD viewing is spent on free programs which advertiser and agencies customers can use the State of VOD report to identify the free content types that will provide the greatest ROI.  Metrics in the State of VOD include analysis of reach by content types, duplication analysis, average title performance by content type, as well as annual and monthly performance levels for the top FOD content.

"We like to think about VOD as the power of 8-plus! In the 8 years since VOD has taken off, homes now watch 8 hours of VOD a month and 80% of that is free TV programs, with more than 80% of the free TV program viewing occurring after the first three days of availability on-demand. Combine that with the potential ad sales of a billion dollars and you have one powerful medium," said Cathy Hetzel, Corporate President at Rentrak.

Additional Insights from Rentrak's State of VOD: Trend Report 2011:

• VOD grew overall by more than 1 billion transactions from 7.8 billion last year to 8.8 billion in 2011.
• 77% of those transactions (6.8 billion) were for free content, providing significant opportunity for revenue growth over the coming years as ad insertion technology becomes commonplace.
• Each month, 33.8 million STBs accessed free content.
• Within FOD, major program viewership is now dominant.  The TV Entertainment category, which includes programming from the top linear broadcast and cable networks, is now the top FOD category by transactions, up from #3 last year.

For more information, or to purchase the "Rentrak State of VOD: Trend Report 2011," please visit http://www.rentrak.com/stateofvod/

About Rentrak Corporation

Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT) is a global digital media measurement and research company, serving the most recognizable companies in the entertainment industry. With a reach across numerous platforms including box office, multi-screen television and home video, Rentrak has developed more efficient metrics to be used as database currencies for the evaluation and selling of media. Rentrak is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with additional U.S. and international offices. For more information on Rentrak, please visit www.rentrak.com.

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SOURCE Rentrak Corporation