Movie Buffs Keen on All Things Oscar Drive Viewership Across Platforms

PORTLAND, Ore., Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- RENTRAK CORPORATION (NASDAQ: RENT), the leader in multi-screen media measurement serving the advertising, television and entertainment industries, has produced multi-screen analysis for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. Rentrak is a global leader in advanced media analytics across all screens where entertainment content is consumed including Box Office, Home Entertainment, On-Demand and census-based TV ratings information.

According to Rentrak's TV Essentials census-based currency of 19 million televisions, viewership of Sunday night's Academy Awards telecast was driven by the traditional movie-going population. Movie buffs tuned in to watch "The Artist" take home the Oscar for Best Picture which has grossed $82.4 million dollars globally from 25 territories to date according to Rentrak's Box Office Essentials and International Box Office Essentials. Heavy movie-goers watched 12% more of the Academy Awards than average, based on Rentrak' s Movie Segmentation database which calculates per-household minutes of TV viewership and compares it to total U.S. household per capita movie consumption

There are 12 films including "A Better Life," "Beginners," "Bridesmaids," "Kung Fu Panda 2," "Margin Call," "Midnight in Paris," "Moneyball," "Rango," "The Help," "The Ides of March," "The Tree of Life," and "Warrior" currently available on video-on-demand (VOD) that were nominated in the major award categories (Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Directing or Animated Feature Film). According to Rentrak's OnDemand Essentials, of these 12 films, six saw an increase in the number of weekly transactions once the film was nominated, and three of those films actually experienced a greater number of transactions in the four weeks following nominations than the four weeks prior to nominations.

The titles that saw a bump in weekly transactions were likely to be films with smaller box office revenue that consumers may have missed during the original theatrical release.

Similarly, these 12 films nominated in the major award categories are currently available for DVD and Blu-ray Disc sale and rental. Of the 12 films, 5 movies saw an increase in retail sales or rentals the week Oscar nominations were announced when compared to the prior week according to Rentrak's Retail Essentials and Home Video Essentials.

"Only Rentrak with its multi-screen census data collection can understand the interaction between the movie theater and the home screen," said Bruce Goerlich, Chief Research Officer at Rentrak.

About Rentrak Corporation
Rentrak Corporation (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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Contact for Rentrak Corporation:
Amanda Bialek
Office: 310-854-8151
E-mail: [email protected]

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SOURCE Rentrak Corporation