Rentrak Signs Deal With AT&T to Track U-verse TV

Audience-measurement firm Rentrak has entered into an agreement with AT&T to measure viewing patterns of U-verse TV customers, Rentrak disclosed in a regulatory filing Friday.

Last month, Rentrak struck a similar agreement with Dish Network, to collect set-top data from the direct-broadcast satellite operator’s subscribers.

Under the deal, Rentrak will aggregate data on an anonymous basis from all set-top boxes across AT&T's U-verse distribution footprint. AT&T had 781,000 U-verse TV subscribers as of Sept. 30 and expects to top 1 million subscribers for the IPTV service by the end of 2008.

Rentrak disclosed the deal with AT&T in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As part of the agreement, AT&T will co-market Rentrak’s TV Essentials service to content providers, local TV stations and marketing clients.

The data provides information about programming and advertising, such as the total number of subscribers watching a particular program, average length of time customers viewed a program, and to what extent subscribers fast-forwarded through all commercial breaks or just specific commercials via a DVR.