Cartoon Network, TWTV Develop Tech for Measuring Usage of Free ITV Apps

Turner Broadcasting-subsidiary, Cartoon Network UK, has launched a technology that is designed to accurately measure the use of free advertiser-sponsored interactive TV and enhanced TV applications on the Sky satellite platform. Turner Broadcasting UK's New Media and Research teams commissioned Two Way TV (TWTV) to develop the new technology, after receiving feedback from advertisers concerned about the lack of industry-standard usage figures for free games and other sponsored ITV applications. While paid-for applications charge the user via a telephone call, thus creating a record of total user sessions, free-to-play applications involve no such call, making it very difficult for broadcasters to measure their use.

Two Way TV's solution was to create a "Toll Application" that launches seconds before the viewer's chosen free-to-play app: it dials a toll-free number, which then logs the interactive session on Two Way TV's Ark system. Data is made instantly available to Turner via online reporting. Turner claims that the application makes its channels (Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Toonami, TCM and CNN) the only ones capable of accurately measuring usage of free- to-use ITV content.

The first advertiser to use the new application is Yoplait Dairy Crest's Frubes brand, which is sponsoring an ITV game on the Cartoon Network. The game launched the same day as the Toll Application, and, according to the Cartoon Network, the latter has logged over 75,000 play sessions of the game since its launch--a high volume of traffic which would seem to demonstrate the efficacy of free ITV apps as an advertising vehicle.

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