- Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is starting to take steps to capitalize on an asset it's been grooming for a while: the mountain of data on what its millions of TV subscribers are watching, paired with more detailed information about them that could goose advertising results.
- The carrier is in talks with TV networks and audience-measurement firms, including ESPN, Turner, Discovery Communications and others about licensing data from its set-top boxes and streaming apps.
- It had already rejected an exclusive offer from Nielsen (NYSE:NLSN), said to be $100M.
- “We do believe it’s an unprecedented set of information,” says Comcast's Sam Schwartz. Unlike Nielsen's extrapolated sample, Comcast's data reflects actual viewing from a much larger base.
- For now, Comcast is only licensing subsets of the data to any one firm, and won't give compromising information about its clients to competitors.