If DOOH is about reach, Reach has it

June 14, 2010 by Dave Haynes

RMG Networks (aka Reach Media Group or RMG) released new Nielsen Media Research numbers that suggest its Fitness Entertainment Network are almost double that of other Nielsen research done later last year.

The jump owes to adding on the LA Fitness and Lifetime Fitness chains and screens into more than 270 new venues in Q1 of this year.

The company has multiple live feeds from major national cable networks running in the exercise areas and does custom ad inserts.

They plan to be in 1,000 locations by the end of the year (big round numbers like that always leave me skeptical), but it is clear they are growing fast. It helps that they are sugard-daddied by National CineMedia, the largest digital in cinema network in North America, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a deep-pocketed Silocn Valley VC firm.

I note all this because RMG is making some interesting moves, and are probably the one company that so far has truly serious reach.

I remember being wowed a couple of years ago when I saw Focus Media’s screen count numbers in China, which exceeded 100,000. Between the In-Flight Entertainment, Fitness Entertainment, Pharmacy TV, and NYTimes.com Today networks, RMG  has more than 115,000 screens in the US. That equates, they say, to 30 million viewers a month.

From what I have seen I don’t much agree with the content strategy, but that’s fixable. And in the eyes of media planners, I am not at all convinced they care as long as the screens are on and their spots play.