• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 19, 2005

Another major player is entering the market to develop and manage new digital TV data streams for advertisers and agencies, and this one already has some expertise doing the same thing for another digital medium: the Internet. Atlas, a unit of interactive agency holding company aQuantive that provides media planning and buying data for online media buys, Thursday announced plans to enter the video-on-demand TV data marketplace. The new unit, dubbed Atlas On Demand, will compete with a growing cadre of third-party processors such as Erin Media and Rentrak, which are vying to strike deals with cable and satellite operators to gain access to their subscriber databases.

To date, TV operators have been loath to make such data widely available, despite strong demand from Madison Avenue. The TV industry has dragged its feet citing consumer privacy issues, as well as the lack of data standards. The American Association of Advertising Agencies' Advanced Television Committee issued a set of recommendations for measuring on-demand television in February 2004, but little progress was made until March, when cable giant Comcast announced a deal to make some of its VOD data available for processing via Rentrak.

But after Comcast CEO Brian Roberts announced the deal, and the fact that Comcast now delivers 80 millions VOD subscribers per month, during the AAAA's Media Conference in New Orleans, a top media agency executive expressed some concerns about the potential for data overload.

"It just seems like we're going to be overwhelmed with data," said Adam Gerber, senior vice president-group director of strategy and innovation at MediaVest. It is just such concerns that have prompted companies like Rentrak, Erin Media, and now Atlas to enter the market in an effort to make the information manageable and applicable for marketers and agencies to make media planning decisions with.

To oversee Atlas' effort, the company named Scott Ferris senior vice president-general manager of the new unit. Ferris, a long-time interactive TV vet, previously worked on a number of major interactive TV test beds.

Unlike Erin Media and Rentrak, which work for TV operators and content companies, Ferris said Atlas On Demand will be focused exclusively on servicing Madison Avenue. He declined to say which advertisers and agencies the company is working with for VOD data, but noted it already has relationships for online data with a number of major shops, including Doner, Mediaedge:cia, Euro RSCG, Hill Holliday, Avenue A/Razorfish, Camelot, ID Media, Initiative Media and OMD.

Ferris also declined to say what, if any agreements Atlas On Demand has with cable or satellite TV operators, though he said the company is "having discussions with all of them."