Médiamétrie and the GfK Group today announced the signing of a strategic partnership: the launch of a new joint study for France, the “Multimedia Equipment Reference”, which will provide the market with a unique reference on the equipment of French households.

For a media and multimedia equipment market that is highly dynamic, and whose transformation is speeding up due to digital convergence, the GfK Group and Médiamétrie wished to offer accurate and indisputable monitoring of the development of all these new technologies to all of the market.

The “Multimedia Equipment Reference” combines complementary skills: the carrying out of 22,000 face-to-face interviews a year with French residents 15 years and older, and the use of data from real sales from the GfK Group’s distributor panels, combined with Médiamétrie’s scientific expertise in the production of results.

“This partnership”, emphasised Jacqueline Aglietta, “illustrates Médiamétrie’s strategic intention to provide the market with a unique reference result in the sphere of media and multimedia equipment. The ‘Multimedia Equipment Reference’ will permit market players to be continuously aware of the rate of ownership of present and emerging electronic, audiovisual, Internet, and telecommunications equipment used in or outside the home. In this way, they will be able to anticipate the public’s latest behaviours and the ways in which their programmes are received.”

“We are convinced that the market needs to have firm indicators of the reality of households’ multimedia equipment, since technological changes are increasingly rapid, yet more complex for
consumers. This reference study will allow us to better analyse the reasons for success or failure of new equipment, and therefore to better anticipate changes” said Gérard Hermet, member of GfK
AG’s Board of Directors and President of GfK France.

The “Multimedia Equipment Reference” is intended for distributors, equipment manufacturers, and all media professionals, telecommunications operators, broadcasters, space brokers, media agencies, and advertisers.

The first results will be available during the second quarter of 2005.

Médiamétrie is the interprofessional company for audience measurement and audiovisual and interactive media studies. Its mission is to provide measurement of audiences and of audiovisual and interactive media performance with a level of quality that will allow it to be, with general consensus, the unique professional reference for all market participants. Created in 1985, Médiamétrie is expanding its activities in Television, Radio, Film, the Internet, and New Media in France and abroad. In 2004, Médiamétrie had an estimated sales figure of 38 million Euros, with a workforce of 324 people.

The GfK Group ranks 5th worldwide and 4th in Europe among marketing research institutes, and had total sales of 595 million Euros in 2003 (in 2002, the Group had 559 million Euros according to the American GAAP accounting standards) with its five divisions: Consumer Tracking, Healthcare, Retail
& Technology, Media, and Custom Research. The Group counts more than 120 subsidiaries and affiliated companies throughout more than 50 countries. In all, they have 5,200 employees. For further information, visit the website: http://www.gfk.com/ or http://www.gfkms.com/ In France, the Group had consolidated sales in 2004 of 71.5 million Euros, with 451 employees.

Contacts:

Médiamétrie
Christelle Cros +33 (0)1 47 58 97 55 – ccros@mediametrie.fr

GfK
Violaine Djen-Louandre +33 (0)1 47 42 19 50 – louandrv@fleishmaneurope.com