--In an Average Month, 45% of Enabled Set-Tops are Accessing VOD

Multiscreen media measurement and research company, Rentrak, has published the "Rentrak State of VOD: Trend Report 2009." According to the company, the report encompasses industry-wide performance data for all of 2009, and is based on the aggregation of data from its OnDemand Essentials service, which it claims tracks 70 million set-top boxes across 33 operators for more than 100 content providers.

For the first time, according to Rentrak, cumulative reach curves have been incorporated to help advertisers understand reach among top titles in each of the free-on-demand (FOD) categories. In addition, the company says, the report includes detailed VOD monthly trends from January, 2007 through December, 2009; order trends by hour; top movies-on-demand genres; free-on-demand benchmarks; and special sections highlighting HD and adult VOD content.

Among the highlights of the new report, according to Rentrak:

• VOD viewers spent more than 3.1 billion hours watching on-demand content last year.
• In an average month, 45% of enabled set-top boxes are accessing VOD.
• Active users of VOD are ordering an average of 16.4 free programs per month, 8.7 subscription programs and 2.0 movies-on-demand.
• Viewers placed 5.1 billion FOD orders and spent nearly 1.6 billion hours watching FOD content.
• Subscription VOD content generated 1.6 billion transactions and more than 1.1 billion hours of playtime.
• Transactional VOD content generated over 208 million orders, totaling over $963 million in gross revenues.