• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, August 10, 2010

Rentrak is set to add set-top-box data from 4.3 million homes to bolster its TV measurement products. The company has been generating metrics based on projections from STB data culled from 2.5 million homes served by AT&T U-verse.

Early next month, an additional 4.3 million households served by Dish Network will help improve its ratings projections, both for national networks and stations in local markets. Later in the year, Rentrak will begin to integrate results from about 1 million homes served by Charter Communications in 25 markets.

Rentrak has made a pitch to attract networks that are unrated by Nielsen as customers for its TV Essentials service. And with so many Hispanic cable networks falling into that group, the company views the collection as a major growth area.

Company executives spoke Tuesday at a gathering of MPG's Collaborative Alliance focusing on Hispanic networks. A principal topic: how STB data can help Hispanic networks that don't receive Nielsen ratings provide advertisers with some insight into their viewership.

Tracey McCormack, who heads ad sales, said the metrics over time could help Sí TV and Hispanic media grab "a bigger piece of the [advertising] pie." Sí TV targets bicultural Hispanics and this spring launched reruns of Fox's "Prison Break." The channel's programming is in English.

Rentrak's StationView Essentials product, which provides ratings for local markets, will have a considerably wider base to draw from once Dish homes are integrated into the sample it draws from.

Word of the arrangement with Dish is not new. Rentrak has been trumpeting it for some time, trying to establish a leadership position in the STB-measurement arena. But the exact subset of Dish's overall 14.3 million subscriber base was sub rosa.

For example, Rentrak's ratings projections in the Wichita market are currently based on about 9,000 AT&T homes. It will now have second-by-second data -- tracking ad-skipping and more -- from about 33,000 homes. In Columbus, where Rentrak has been successful at landing affiliates of multiple Big Four networks as clients, the STB base could top 75,000 with the addition of the Dish homes.

Of the country's 210 markets, 62 have homes served by AT&T, and 25 by Charter. Dish has some homes in all of them.

In markets with only Dish homes, Rentrak will make projections, in part, by overlaying performance data from AT&T homes in similar areas.

Over time, Rentrak executives are optimistic that they will be able to strike deals with other cable, satellite and telco TV operators to procure more STB data. For years, the company has had relationships with a slew of multichannel video providers, giving it access to data for its VOD viewing product.

Some advertisers are concerned that Rentrak STB services don't offer the type of demographic ratings that Nielsen does. Rentrak, instead, provides a program-specific index.

For instance, the index might show adults 25 to 44 are more likely to watch "Grey's Anatomy" than a typical viewer in that age break. Rentrak indexes go well beyond age, stretching into income and other areas.

Rentrak executive Carol Hinnant said she is not concerned about a lack of Nielsen-style demos. Rentrak's ability to overlay its viewing data with information on consumer behavior and lifestyle patterns can be more valuable for a marketer, she said.