COMPETITIVE MEDIA REPORTING ACQUIRES ADSCOPE, INC.

CMR (Competitive Media Reporting; New York), a unit of Taylor Nelson Sofres (London), a provider of market information services to large corporations in over 80 countries, has acquired advertising tracking service Adscope, Inc. (Eugene, OR) from owner Sheila Craven. No terms were given.

Established in 1981, Adscope is an ad tracking service geared toward magazines in the computer/high-tech industries. The company currently tracks over 360,000 ads and nearly $7 billion in competitive advertising expenditures annually. It markets its surveys and data to publishers, ad agencies, advertisers and related ad and publishing professionals. The company will now operate as a division of CMR's business-to-business operations.

CMR said the purchase gives it "the capability to further expand its business-to-business portfolio of services and publisher client base in the U.S. and worldwide." CMR's goal is to "develop a suite of integrated services combining the in-depth detail from Adscope with CMR's multi-media information." Adscope founder/coo Sheila Craven said that, together, CMR and Adscope can offer services "in a way that Adscope cannot alone."

CMR was acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres in 2000 from VNU as part of VNU's compliance efforts relating to its purchase of Nielsen Media Research. The company provides occurance and expenditure data for over 900,000 brands across 15 media.