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GfK Goes Shopping in France and Cyprus
GfK has finalised its acquisition of French music tracking firm Ifop Music (Institut Français d'Opinion Publique), and taken a 25% stake in Cypriot radio/TV audience measurement company Watch Media, with an option to purchase a majority stake at a later date.
Ifop tracks sales of audio media and music downloads in France on a weekly basis, on behalf of the music association Syndicat National de l'édition Phonographique (SNEP). The Paris-based company, which was founded in 1993 and has additional offices in Toronto, Buenos Aires and Shanghai, last year appointed former Ipsos France Joint MD Stéphane Truchi as Chairman of its Executive Board.
GfK says the acquisition will strengthen its Media Control International subsidiary, which already tracks music sales and produces the charts in Germany, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Watch Media calculates the reach of radio stations, TV stations and print titles in Cyprus, and also operates a panel through which it records the media consumption behaviour of around 7,200 people every year. Its Mediawatch multimedia measurement tool, which is supplied by subsidiary GfK Telecontrol, records the amount of contact that the wearer has with various forms of media.
Separately, GfK has increased the size of its household panel in Germany from 20,000 to 30,000 households, and expanded its single-source approach from 7,000 to 15,000 households.
Additionally, GfK Switzerland has transferred its FMCG panels to Nielsen, to enable it to concentrate on surveying consumer durables from the non-food segment.
Web site: www.gfk.com .
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