Post Type:post Viamedia Introduces Political Audience Extension Toolset Powered by Rentrak | Viamedia

New York City and Portland, OR – October 27, 2015 — Viamedia, the television industry’s largest independent cable TV ad management company, and Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT), the leader in precisely measuring movies and TV everywhere, announced today the release of Viamedia’s new Political Audience Extension Toolset.

The toolset, powered by Rentrak’s Advanced Demographics, was developed as a resource to help advertisers effectively plan, purchase and manage TV inventory as the 2016 political season escalates. With political advertisers driving up demand and pricing for advertising on popular news networks and around key high profile programming events, the Audience Extension Toolset will help non-political advertisers efficiently and effectively schedule and place ads on television networks that are less likely to be impacted.

The toolset empowers advertisers by utilizing a 2016 political calendar and Rentrak’s Audience Extension data to effectively predict when and where inventory will be in highest demand, allowing ad buyers to shift their focus elsewhere to capture the same audience.

“Given the current estimates on political ad spending this election, it’s more pressing than ever that advertisers and political campaigns plan ahead if they want to engage their targeted audience from now until November 2016,” said Viamedia President & CEO Mark Lieberman. “We saw an immediate need from all advertisers for a strategic resource, so we worked with Rentrak, leveraging its massive TV measurement footprint.”

Borrell Associates recently estimated 19% growth in broadcast TV political ad spending and 39% growth in cable TV political ad spending nationwide for the 2016 election season compared to the 2012 election. Viamedia anticipates more than 80% of its share of the 2015-2016 political ad dollars will be spent on nine cable networks.

“Viamedia has had great success leveraging Rentrak’s data in the past, providing innovative resources for advertisers targeting segmented markets such as healthcare, legal services and more,” said Carol Hinnant, Rentrak’s senior vice president of national television sales. “Knowing the significance of Viamedia’s latest installment, the Political Audience Extension Toolset, we were thrilled when they approached us to help develop the solution.”

Rentrak’s television ratings service is the only fully integrated system of detailed satellite, telco and nationwide cable television viewing information from approximately 35 million TVs and video on demand users from more than 119 million TVs, including granular information for television stations in all 210 markets across the United States.

About Viamedia
Headquartered in New York City, Viamedia is the largest independent cable TV ad management company for local, regional and national advertising, programmatic and ad tech solutions, responsible for more than 1.2 million 30-second spots per day. The company specializes in selling advertising on behalf of U.S. cable and telecommunications service providers, utility companies and municipalities, and has partnered with nearly 60 MVPDs. The company also operates placemedia, a programmatic data-driven platform, representing over 30 billion avails monthly across 210 DMAs on nearly 100 TV networks. For more information, please visit www.viamediatv.com and www.placemedia.com.

About Rentrak
Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT) is the entertainment and marketing industries’ premier provider of worldwide consumer viewership information, precisely measuring actual viewing behavior of movies and TV everywhere. Using our proprietary intelligence and technology, combined with Advanced Demographics, only Rentrak is the census currency for VOD and movies. Rentrak provides the stable and robust audience measurement services that movie, television and advertising professionals across the globe have come to rely on to better deliver their business goals and more precisely target advertising across numerous platforms including box office, multiscreen television and home video. For more information on Rentrak, please visit www.rentrak.com.

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