MUMBAI: GroupM Malaysia has subscribed to Kantar Media’s Dynamic Television Audience Measurement (DTAM) service, which is the new television currency for measuring the habits of Pay TV viewers in Malaysia.

The agreement comes into effect immediately and gives GroupM’s clients access to the system for their 2016 TV planning and buying requirements on Pay TV. The DTAM measurement system was launched in Malaysia in 2015 and was available to media agencies on a free trial basis until December. The system measures viewing behaviour using Return-Path-Data technology (RPD), first introduced by Kantar Media in Europe in 2005 and which has since been implemented in America, Africa, Europe and other parts of Asia Pacific.

DTAM offers granular information on HD channels and time-shifted viewing - both rapidly increasing viewing trends in Malaysia.

“Our agency teams successfully trialled the DTAM system last year, testing the metric to ensure it meets the needs of our clients and learning how to mine the data to obtain the most comprehensive insights into audience viewing,” said GroupM Malaysia CEO Girish Menon.

“Kantar Media’s proven experience in adopting RPD technology has proven to be more effective for multi-channel networks like Astro and will add greater insight to supplement the existing traditional measurement already in the country,” he added.

“We’re delighted that GroupM Malaysia have recognised the benefits of DTAM to ensure their clients have the best possible insight to inform their media planning and buying decisions,” said Kantar Media Asia Pacific managing director  Nick Burfitt. “Our experience in audience measurement across over 50 markets worldwide will mean that GroupM and their advertiser clients will benefit from best-in- class technology and measurement to inform their decisions both now and in the future.”