Rentrak Reports Ratings for the Second 2012 Presidential Debate Across All Broadcast & Cable Networks

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Rentrak Corporation (NASDAQ: RENT), the leader in multi-screen media measurement serving the advertising, television and entertainment industries, today announced ratings information from Tuesday night's presidential debate, the second between President Obama and GOP candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Tuesday's town hall-style debate took place at Hofstra University and was moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley. Questions covered a range of topics including foreign and domestic policy and were submitted by the audience.

Viewing habits varied slightly during the second debate with fewer people tuning in, but watching longer. The total viewing audience fell from 49.1 million households during the first debate to 48.0 million households during the second debate. People did watch more of the debate this time with 75.7% of the total minutes of the debate being watched by the average home, up from 73.0% during the first debate. In terms of the traditional average audience rating in the first debate, it was a 31.2 which grew slightly to 31.7 during the second debate.

Selected markets reported on by Rentrak during the first debate showed the biggest relative drop in viewing coming from Traverse City and Grand Rapids, Michigan, which both fell about 8% below the average in the U.S.

Bruce Goerlich, Chief Research Officer at Rentrak said, "With less than one month to go before Election Day, Rentrak's TV ratings illuminate how politics has its own intense followers."

The final debate, covering foreign policy, will be held on October 22 and will be moderated by CBS correspondent, Bob Schieffer.

Below is a table of key markets and a second-by-second TV viewing graph.

Second-by-Second Ratings Graph:

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121017/SF95392-INFO)

Rentrak's television ratings measurement service provides daily measurement of all TV networks nationally and at a granular level for TV stations in all 210 media markets nationwide. The service incorporates information from over 20 million televisions and is the only fully integrated system of detailed satellite, telco and cable TV viewing data commercially available.

About Rentrak Corporation
Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT) is a global digital media measurement and research company, serving the most recognizable companies in the entertainment industry. With a reach across numerous platforms including box office, multi-screen television and home video, Rentrak has developed more efficient metrics to be used as census-based and census-like currencies for the evaluation and selling of media. Rentrak is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with additional U.S. and international offices. For more information on Rentrak, please visit www.rentrak.com.

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Contacts for Rentrak Corporation:
Sallie Olmsted / Amanda Bialek
Office: 310-854-8124 / 310-854-8151
E-mail: solmsted@rogersandcowan.com  /  abialek@rogersandcowan.com

SOURCE Rentrak Corporation