Measurement
comScore, Rentrak Complete Merger
Story Highlights
Online tracking firm comScore has completed its stock-for-stock acquisition of media and entertainment research firm Rentrak, creating a new audience measurement powerhouse that’s expected to take on Nielsen.
The merger — estimated to be worth more than $730 million — creates a cross-platform measurement company (operating under the comScore name) that will report on multiscreen consumer behavior in more than 75 countries.
“This merger brings together two great entrepreneurial companies that invented their respective fields and their respective trusted currencies,” said comScore Serge Matta, in a statement. “Both have been driven to create innovative technology platforms that use massive data scale to measure increasingly fragmented consumer behavior. Together these two principal architects of the multiscreen future will deliver the cross-platform currencies that have been demanded for so long.
“The cross-platform world is changing rapidly and this change demands relentless inventiveness, agility, and collaborative intelligence. These are qualities on which both companies have built their success. This proven ability to precisely measure extremely fragmented, dynamic audiences in dramatic, innovative ways — and to quickly report on it — has provided the insights that allow our clients to act with great competitive advantages.”
The merger will allow comScore to measure audience behavior across more than 40,000 movie theater screens, 260 million desktops, 160 million mobile phones, 120 million VOD screens and 95 million tablets.
“When you come from the world of trillions of fragmented digital interactions, you understand the need for massive data and sophisticated technology. That’s why for 15 years we’ve invented measurement systems based on these principles in anticipation of the evolving needs of our clients,” said Magid Abraham, comScore’s chairman and co-founder, in a statement. “We’re incredibly excited about where our innovations and insights will take our clients in this new trajectory.”
The merger will see Matt serving as CEO of both companies, with Bill Livek, Rentrak’s vice chairman and CEO, becoming executive vice chairman and president. David Chemerow, Rentrak’s COO and CFO, will serve as a strategic advisor to the CEO.
