GfK Group Expands International TV Research

GfK Group Expands International TV Research

NUREMBERG, Germany, February 15/PRNewswire/ --

- GfK Companies Acquire Research Contracts Worldwide, Increase Their
Panels and Implement New Metering Technology

GfK Romania will be measuring official TV ratings in Romania for four
years initially, starting from January 2008. In Bulgaria, GfK Audience
Research Bulgaria has already been measuring ratings since the end of 2006.
The TV research contract of Intomart GfK in the Netherlands has been extended
by a further three years and the contract of GfK Ukraine until 2012. Beyond
this, the GfK Group has equipped viewer panels in India, Pakistan and Cyprus
with additional and also new metering instruments.

The GfK Group is continually consolidating its strength in global TV
research with new and extended contracts and constant improvements to its
metering technology.

ARMA, the umbrella organization of Romanian TV stations, advertisers and
media agencies, has commissioned GfK Romania to measure official TV ratings
from January 2008. The Romanian GfK subsidiary will install the TC VIII TV
meter, which was developed by the Swiss Telecontrol Group, a member of the
GfK Group, in 1,200 households. The ARMA TV research contract will run for
four years.

In Bulgaria, GfK Audience Research Bulgaria (GARB), which was
specifically established for this purpose, has been measuring official TV
ratings since the end of 2006. TC VIII meters are used in the 750
representative panel households.

Intomart GfK and the Dutch association for television audience research,
SKO, have extended their contract for TV reach research in the Netherlands,
which has been in place since 1964, by a further three years. Intomart GfK is
currently upgrading its meter, which has been installed in 1,250 households,
to include Enhanced Audio Matching (EAM).

Recently, GfK Ukraine won the local tender for TV ratings once again. For
the five-year contract, which runs from 2008 to 2012, a new and expanded
panel will be set up that will then encompass more than 2,500 households.

At the beginning of the year, Indian television researchers, aMap,
expanded their household panel by 1,000 to cover a total of 7,000 households.
This, the biggest viewer panel worldwide, uses the GfK instrument, TC VIII
Standard. The company plans to increase its panel to 19,000 households in the
medium term.

The Pakistani media research company, Medialogic, will start using the TC
VIII system in 500 households from mid-year. With this new viewer panel,
Medialogic is launching the first electronic TV research measures ever in
Pakistan.

On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, TV, radio and print media
consumption has been measured since mid-2006, using the latest multimedia
metering instrument of the Telecontrol Group, MediaWatch III. The Cypriot
company, Watch Media, maintains a panel in which 300 participants on rotation
wear the MediaWatch for two weeks at a time.

Various GfK companies measure TV ratings in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland partly already
since the 1970s. The ratings recorded by the GfK TV panels form the standard
currency of media planners and program schedulers. Channels and their sales
houses use the information to calculate, for example, pricing for TV
commercials.

Marion Eisenblätter
Tel. +49-911-395-2645
marion.eisenblaetter@gfk.com

Source: GfK Gruppe

Marion Eisenblätter, Tel. +49-911-395-2645, marion.eisenblaetter@gfk.com

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