Private investment firm Advaya Capital has completed a deal to acquire Comscore Movies, which aggregates box office grosses and tracks data across all North American movie theaters and 95 percent of theaters globally for Hollywood studios and other clients. Going forward, the project will once again be known as Rentrak, the name it operated under for years before being sold to Comscore.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Comscore sold its box office business for $70 million in cash.
The sale comes as the theatrical business is undergoing a recovery and is on track to record its best year since the pandemic.
“This acquisition is a commitment to the past, present and future of the theater industry,” Anat Guptal, managing partner at Advaya Capital, said in a statement. “The return to the Rentrak name reflects a return to the spirit of service and innovation that has made this platform what it is today. We look forward to engaging with studios, distributors and theaters alike to hear how we can continue to improve the legacy of the business.”
Includes the team working behind the scenes to acquire Comscore Movies from Comscore Inc. Longtime studio distribution executive Chris Aronson, who was most recently president of domestic distribution at Paramount. During the break between studio gigs, he founded Rentrak Theatrical, which leveraged the ability to collect real-time revenue from theaters across the country.
Aronson will join the new venture’s board of directors alongside Arturo Guillén, who served as Global Managing Director and Executive Vice President of Comscore Movies and brings 25 years of direct industry experience dating back to the origins of the business at EDI.
“The theater business is entering a period of profound development, and data is the compass that will guide its future,” Guillén said in the same statement. “By combining Comscore’s unparalleled historical data and global footprint with the agility of private enterprise combined with the strategic vision of Chris Aronson and Anant Gupta, we are building a platform that not only reports numbers, but builds the future of cinema. We are committed to helping the film industry grow as a whole.”
The company provides studios, distributors and exhibitors with data on which they rely in release strategy, financial settlements, talent compensation and final licensing decisions. Comscore Movies has been the gold standard of box office data for nearly 50 years, dating back to 1976, when Marcy Boler-Swartz founded Entertainment Data Inc. (EDI), creating the first system for collecting unbiased and reliable box office data. Nielsen acquired EDI in 1997 and renamed it Nielsen EDI. In 2010, Rentrak Theatrical fully acquired Nielsen’s EDI business, unifying the industry under a common, trusted platform. Rentrak merged with Comscore in 2016.
Comscore Movies collects transaction-level data from approximately 34,000 theaters and more than 200,000 screens in more than 70 countries. While continuity is the immediate priority, Advaya’s acquisition is also a commitment to investment and innovation as the theatrical industry continues to recover from the pandemic.
Advaya plans to invest in the company across three dimensions: expanding and deepening its data portfolio, including in underpenetrated international markets; Leveraging AI to automate and enhance data collection as well as build descriptive and predictive analytics capabilities; and developing new products and services that address unmet needs across the theatrical ecosystem, with a focus on the evolving relationship between theatrical release and streaming.
Private equity has been pushing hard on media and entertainment data in recent years. In 2022, Nielsen, the gold standard for TV measurement, was sold to a private equity firm in a $16 billion deal, and Kantar sold Media in a $1 billion deal last year. UK-based data company Ampere Analysis sold to a private equity firm earlier this week.
