US Ratings Services to Join Forces

TV ratings provider erinMedia has announced an exclusive Strategic Alliance Agreement with Atlanta-based Navigauge, Inc, agreed by the boards and likely to lead to the acquisition of the latter in the fourth quarter of 2005. The agreement would give erinMedia cross-media, sector-specific ratings services across TV, radio, and outdoor.

The terms of the Agreement were not disclosed. Navigauge was founded in 2001 and provides second-by-second radio ratings products via passive monitoring devices installed in panel members' vehicles, which erinMedia's Chairman and CEO Frank Maggio describes as 'vastly superior' to the traditional diary methods still used for much radio advertising analysis. Navigauge also utilises GPS software to 'geo-code' billboard locations, giving real-time board-specific outdoor advertising rating and demographic data.

ErinMedia's own offering uses a combination of privacy-compliant tuning data passively collected from advanced set-top boxes, with independently gathered demographic data. Frank Foster, erinMedia President, says erinMedia has always believed in 'the power of patents, intellectual property and open markets' to steer measurement technology forward. 'This alliance and an ultimate acquisition will further our vision, and create new opportunities for advertisers and media companies'.

Both companies claim to have experienced problems competing with the entrenched suppliers of ratings data. erinMedia last month joined ReacTV in an antitrust lawsuit against Nielsen Media Research, citing the latter's 'practice of using long-term staggered contracts with broadcast networks, and its attempted or announced acquisition of potential competitors, such as erinMedia or AudioAudit'. Former Navigauge Sr. VP of Media Drew Simpson says that his company's products received 'near unanimous endorsement' from prospective clients but that 'superior product alone did not assure deployment'.

Simpson blames the disappearance of 'nearly all of the ratings dollars from the radio marketplace' on the big, long-term contracts signed by most radio broadcasters. 'Despite our ability to provide superior ratings products for the most important, dominant and discriminating venue of broadcast radio consumption - the vehicle - Navigauge was still relegated to being an 'add-on' or 'custom research' line item for radio station and ownership group budgets'. Simpson believes that the agreement may provide the momentum needed to open the market to competition.

erinMedia is part of The Frank Maggio Companies and is online at www.erinMedia.net . Maggio expects to unveil a proposed 'complete restructuring of the television and radio ratings industries' in mid- to late August.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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