Kantar Media announced its plans to launch a TV audience measurement service based on data it will collect from more than one million set-top boxes. The syndicated Kantar Media Audience Advisor service, which will compete with industry leader Nielsen and other data firms such as Rentrak, intends to provide insights into viewer behavior, including program engagement and commercial ratings. Initial clients will include GroupM and Saatchi & Saatchi.

“Kantar Media Audience Advisor will provide us with new and valuable insight across a broad national footprint of television households,” said Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer for GroupM. “Its combination of second-by-second viewing behavior and robust purchasing data offers the kind of consumer understanding we need to help us make our clients’ advertising campaigns as effective as possible.”

“By integrating purchase and demographic data from third party partners, Kantar plans to be able to offer information based on demographics and shopping behavior,” reports Broadcasting & Cable. “Kantar says it will bring the necessary quality and research expertise that is standard in currency measurement to Audience Advisor through ongoing data acuity initiatives conducted in the company’s exclusive set-top box return path data (RPD) lab facility.”

Kantar Media’s third party partners include Experian Marketing Services, J.D. Power and Kantar Shopcom, among others.

“Audience Advisor is a natural evolution of the audience measurement work that Kantar Media began when it pioneered RPD for analysis of television viewing behavior,” said George Shababb, president of Kantar Media Audiences. “The complexity of the marketplace has increased the need for broader, more comprehensive insights but only if they are based on quality data. As a well-established research company with a focused mission, Kantar Media is uniquely positioned to deliver on the need for advanced audience measurement systems that can deliver the power of Big Data along with a high level of data acuity and powerful analytics.”

In September, Kantar rolled out a mobile app version of its InfoSys+ TV audience analysis software, designed to enable broadcast audience data to be viewed on mobile devices (details available on the company’s press release).