Rentrack said it has been granted a patent by the U.S. for its system for removing bias when combining TV viewing information from set-top box with other transaction data.
Marketers have been looking to use the kind of "big data" generated " by millions of TV set top boxes to guide the way the target their advertising efforts. The technology, for the first time, eliminates the use of age/sex demographics in the creation of projection weights by substituting the actual behavioral characteristics of the observed data, Rentrak says.
"This is great news for Rentrak and our clients as this patent recognizes our leadership in the field of projecting set-top box data and gives our clients' further confidence in our measurement," Rentrak CEO and Vice Chairman Bill Livek said in a statement. "This is a problem that has confounded every other company that has tried to invent products from TV set-top boxes, so it is with a great sense of pride that we continue our culture of innovating solutions that are cutting edge and unique to Rentrak. This methodology also has broad reaching applications to databases other than television."
