Critical Mention Adds Audience Estimates and Media Value Metrics to Real-Time Broadcast News Clips With Data Provided by Nielsen Media Research and SQAD

Critical Mention Adds Audience Estimates and Media Value Metrics to Real-Time Broadcast News Clips With Data Provided by Nielsen Media Research and SQAD

Broadcast Monitoring Service to Provide Access to Estimated Audience Size and Estimated Advertising Spot Cost Equivalency Data Within Its Real-time TV Search Engine

NEW YORK, July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Critical Mention, Inc., the leading Web- based real-time television news search and broadcast monitoring service, today announced an enhancement to its CriticalTV (CTV) Platform, providing important measurement and analytical data from Nielsen Media Research and SQAD. PR professionals will now have access to audience estimates and media value metrics as they monitor both scheduled and unscheduled television mentions in real-time via the CTV Platform.

Clients are increasingly holding their PR firms, communications departments and consultants accountable for demonstrable results. This accountability includes a comparison against other marketing expenditures and measuring the impact of publicity on target audiences. PR professionals can finally stop debating and start quantifying the value of PR efforts with the integration of Nielsen and SQAD data into Critical Mention's real-time TV monitoring platform.

"One of the biggest challenges facing the PR industry is accountability and measurement," said Sean Morgan, founder and CEO of Critical Mention. "With Nielsen and SQAD data incorporated into the Critical Mention platform, our customers are now able to clearly show the impact of public relations on the bottom line."

Nielsen Media Research is the leading provider of television audience measurement and related services worldwide. SQAD is recognized as the industry standard media cost forecasting source for broadcast media, and allows users to analyze national and spot television markets, as well as SQAD Spot Hispanic TV and Spot Radio.

The web-based CTV platform is tailored to serve the specific needs of corporate communications departments, investor relations departments, market research companies, PR firms, government agencies and politicians looking to efficiently track, capture, analyze and distribute business information derived from real-time broadcast content. Critical TV users utilize advanced search technologies to automatically filter captured television data and provide real-time alerts based on user-defined search terms and keywords.

Audience Estimates and Estimated Advertising Spot Cost Equivalency data will be offered as an add-on feature to Critical Mention's product suite including the CTV Platform, Media Galleries, Hit Reports, and a la carte services. These new data sets will be available to Critical Mention's public relations and corporate communication clients.

About Nielsen Media Research

Nielsen Media Research is the leading provider of television audience measurement and related services, worldwide. In the United States, Nielsen's National People Meter service provides audience estimates for all national program sources, including broadcast networks, cable networks, Spanish language networks, and national syndicators. Local ratings estimates are produced for television stations, regional cable networks, MSOs, cable interconnects, and Spanish language stations in each of the 210 television markets in the U.S., including People Meter service in seven local markets (10 markets by 2006) and electronic set-metered service in 51 markets.

Nielsen Media Research, outside the U.S. and through international partnerships, operates TV ratings panels in 45 markets. Nielsen Media Research also offers radio audience measurement, print readership, direct mail measurement and customized media research services outside the U.S. In addition, Nielsen Media Research provides competitive advertising intelligence information in the U.S. and in 29 markets worldwide. Through a network of affiliates, advertising intelligence coverage is extended to more than 70 countries, representing 85% of the world's advertising spending. For more information, please visit http://www.nielsenmedia.com/.

Nielsen Media Research is a unit of VNU, a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information, media measurement and information and business information VNU is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Harlem, the Netherlands and New York, USA. The company employs 38,000 people. Total revenues under IFRS amounted to EUR 3.3 billion in 2004. VNU is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. For more information, please visit the VNU website at http://www.vnu.com/

About SQAD

SQAD is recognized as the industry standard media cost forecasting source for national TV (network TV, cable and syndication), spot TV, Hispanic spot TV and spot radio. SQAD provides reliable media data to advertising agencies, buying services, advertisers, television and radio stations, cable operators and program syndicators. SQAD enjoys strong partnerships with market leaders in both data and analytics. Established in the 1970s, SQAD serves 1,500 clients and is privately held.

About Critical Mention

Critical Mention Inc., the most comprehensive Web-based television search and broadcast monitoring service, is changing the way corporate communications and business intelligence professionals search, track and view critical information from television news. The company's CriticalTV Pro platform provides real-time monitoring and email alerts for organizations that require up-to-the-minute news about their company, clients and competitors. Critical Mention provides clients the ability to search over 3 million clips and over 10 terabytes of indexed television information, watch a clip within seconds of airing, and securely share clips with colleagues and clients. Critical Mention currently serves more than 450 clients, including Fortune 500 companies and market leaders in corporate communications, financial services, professional services, non-profit and government industries. Founded in 2002, Critical Mention (http://www.criticalmention.com/) is privately held, with headquarters in New York City.

Source: Critical Mention, Inc.

CONTACT: Sharon Tolpin of Critical Mention, +1-917-826-2894,
stolpin@criticalmention.com, or Carrie Gilman of Kwittken & Company,
+1-646-747-7150, cgilman@kwitco.com, or Laura James of Nielsen Media Research,
+1-646-654-8622, laura.james@nielsenmedia.com

Web site: http://www.criticalmention.com/
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/
http://www.vnu.com/

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