--Company Signs Deals with Turner Sports, ESPN
LiveHive Systems, an Ontario-based company that specializes in two-screen interactive TV solutions, says that its flagship Web-based NanoGaming platform--which is available in conjunction with US broadcasts of NASCAR racing and NFL football, and with Canadian broadcasts of "Big Brother" and Major League Baseball--is on track to reach a North America-wide audience of over 100 million viewers. "Three major shifts are taking place in the behavior of traditional TV viewers," LiveHive co-founder and president, Dave Bullock, said in a prepared statement. "First, people are multi-tasking and watching TV at the same time that they're on their laptop or wireless network. Second, televised fantasy sports is growing rapidly. And third, viewers want to interact and be engaged. The result? TV networks and advertisers now realize the impact of the changing television viewer, which is why they're flocking to NanoGaming."
LiveHive's NanoGaming platform penetrated the US in July, when the company signed a deal with Turner Sports to add two-screen interactivity--under the brand, "Live Race Trivia Presented by Shell"--to a series of NASCAR Cup broadcasts that will continue into the fall and that have a claimed audience of 75 million. The platform allows viewers of those broadcasts to compete against one another in real time for prizes by answering up to 50 trivia questions; in order to participate, they go to www.nascar.com/promos/liveracetrivia, and click on a registration button. Last month, following a deal with ESPN, NanoGaming also became available in conjunction with NFL Monday Night Football broadcasts, which attract up to 12 million viewers in the US: the deal sees NanoGaming offered with 17 NFL regular-season games, as well as with some playoff games. In order to participate, viewers log onto the platform on ESPN's fantasy football site (www.espn.com/fantasyfootball); they are then invited to make hundreds of real-time predictions during and before each game, and to answer trivia questions about the players, the teams and the game strategy. Viewers can make pre-game, half-time, and in-game predictions: for example, in the pre-game segment, they might predict which team will win, who will score the first touchdown, or how many points will be scored during the half; at half-time, they might predict who will score the next touchdown or get the most rushing yards; and during the game itself, they might predict whether or not a team will score on a particular drive, whether the kicker will make a field goal, or whether a coach's challenge will be overturned. As viewers compete with one another and earn points for correct predictions, they climb a leaderboard and are eligible to win prizes. In addition, LiveHive has signed a separate agreement to offer the NanoGaming in conjunction with the San Francisco 49ers' telecasts. In Canada, meanwhile, the company signed deals for the NanoGaming platform earlier this summer with Global Television Network (which used the platform to offer real-time prediction games and trivia quizzes in conjunction with "Big Brother 8"), and with The Score Television Network (which is using the platform to offer real-time prediction games and trivia quizzes in conjunction with Major League Baseball telecasts, and which reaches around 6 million homes).
Originally Published: October 12, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.39 Part 3A
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