Kantar Media Strikes Audience Data Deal

Digital TV solutions provider NAGRA is to collaborate with Kantar Media to offer clients subscriber data from in-home devices. The service will be pre-integrated with NAGRA's OpenTV 5 media convergence platform.

NAGRA is a division of the Kudelski Group and provides content protection and multi-screen television solutions to help content providers and DTV operators monetize digital media, via broadcast, broadband and mobile platforms. For its part, Kantar Media has been involved with audience measurement for set-top box operators since 2005, and already offers them in the UK, the USA, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

The new offering will allow clients to measure viewer behaviour on in-home TV devices with minimal change to their existing infrastructure, with the aim of improving their channel line-up and subscription tiering, providing personalised content and measuring up-take of services like PVR, VOD and interactive applications - but will guarantee viewer privacy, the partners say.

Samir Mehta, NAGRA's SVP, DTV Solutions says the partnership gives customers access to 'some of the most advanced reporting and analysis capabilities available today'. Nick Burfitt, Global Director of Return Path Data (RPD) services at Kantar Media Audiences, comments: 'The larger number of new digital platforms and channels presents fresh audience measurement challenges for broadcasters and service providers. By working together with NAGRA we hope to help service providers gain a deeper understanding of their subscribers' viewing habits to enable a more effective pay-TV strategy that will ultimately help grow their business.'

Web sites: www.nagra.com/dtv and www.kantarmedia.com .