--Virgin Media in Bollywood VOD Deal with Saavn
--Company Names Interactive TV Veteran, Jim Chiddix, to its Board
UK cable operator, Virgin Media, says that the BBC's iPlayer catch-up
VOD service has generated 10.5 million views in the first month since
launching on the operator's EPG (note: the service was previously
available on Virgin Media's platform only via the BBC's interactive TV
service, BBCi, accessed by pressing the red button while watching a
BBC channel). Virgin Media, which made the BBC iPlayer available
on its EPG June 1st, and promoted the launch via a consumer
marketing campaign, is the first TV platform to offer the service.
According to Virgin Media, the most popular BBC iPlayer programs
during June were 1) "EastEnders," 2) "Doctor Who," 3) "Holby City,"
4) "Casualty," 5) "Top Gear," 6) "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of
Crisps," 7) "The Apprentice," 8) "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross," 9)
"In the Night Garden," and 10) "The Apprentice: You're Fired." "Our
customers are using BBC iPlayer on Virgin Media to watch the BBC
programs they want, when they want--from the most loved primetime
TV shows to children's series like 'In the Night Garden,'" Malcolm
Wall, Virgin Media's CEO of content, said in a prepared statement.
"Bringing BBC iPlayer to its first TV platform underlines Virgin
Media's commitment to pioneering on-demand television in the UK and
we're delighted by the fantastic customer response and the continued
success of our on-demand offering." Added Rahul Chakkara, the BBC's
controller of TV platforms: "These early figures indicate a real appetite
from viewers to access BBC iPlayer via their TV's and catch-up on
their favorite programs from the comfort of their living room. This
initial success on Virgin Media, underlines the multiplatform appeal of
the BBC iPlayer proposition."
The BBC iPlayer currently offers around 350 hours of BBC
programming from the past seven days, free of charge. Virgin
Media--whose VOD service currently offers around 4,600 hours of
programming, including around 500 films--claims that 48% of its 3.5
million TV customers regularly use the service, and says that the
number of views per customer has grown over the past year from 11 to
24 per month, with average monthly views in Q1, 2008 totaling 36
million.
In other Virgin Media news:
- The company has signed a deal with Saavn, a company that
specializes in distributing programming from South Asia, that sees the
latter offering a range of Bollywood movies on its VOD service (note:
the content is designed to increase the appeal of the service to the UK's
large population of people of Indian and Pakistani descent). Around 30
Bollywood movies are now available on the service at any one time,
with content being refreshed on a monthly basis. The movies are
located in a dedicated section of Virgin's VOD menu. "Our agreement
with Saavn brings one of the largest digital catalogs of Bollywood
films to a UK TV platform for the first time," Virgin Media's Malcolm
Wall said in a prepared statement. "Virgin Media is always looking to
bring new content to our customers and we're delighted to be making a
fantastic line-up of Bollywood films available as we continue to
develop our compelling TV-on-demand line-up."
- The company has appointed former OpenTV chairman and CEO and
current OpenTV vice chairman, Jim Chiddix, to its board as an
independent, non-executive director (note: at the same time as it
announced Chiddix's appointment, it announced the appointment of
two other non-executive directors: Andrew Cole, chief marketing
officer and SVP of Asurion, and Steven Simmons, chairman and CEO
of Simmons/Patriot Media & Communications.) "Individually and
collectively, James, Andrew and Steven bring to our board a wealth of
experience in the entertainment and communications industries," Virgin
Media chairman, Jim Mooney, said in a prepared statement. "Their
strategic insight will help Virgin Media capitalize on its unique assets
and put its technology at the heart of a differentiated consumer
offering." Prior to joining OpenTV, Chiddix served as president of
Time Warner Cable's Interactive Personal Video Group (IPVG), the
division of the company that was charged with developing MystroTV, a
headend-driven PVR service, which never commercially launched, but
some of whose technologies came to form the basis of the company's
current Start Over service. Prior to his tenure at the IPVG, Chiddix
served for 15 years as TWC's senior vice president and chief technical
officer. He was closely involved in the Full Service Network, a
pioneering trial of interactive TV and VOD that TWC conducted in
Orlando, Florida in the early 1990's. While at TWC, he also received an
Emmy Award for the contributions that he and his team made to the
development of the hybrid fiber/coax architecture which now makes it
possible for cable operators to offer two-way interactive services.
