Thursday, February 9, 2012
April 2009 |
The 2nd Annual TVOT NYC Intensive The second annual TVOT NYC Intensive took place on Monday, December 5th at 730 Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. We would like to thank everybody who participated and attended for making the event a success! Read more about the highlights - video and photos to be posted soon. To find out about future event sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, contact us at swedlow@itvt.com or 415-824-5806 |
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Andy Dymoke, a senior product manager at OpenTV, died unexpectedly on April 22nd. He is survived by his wife of 26 years, Suzie; by his son, Ned; and by his sisters, Jill and Susan. A memorial Web site for him has been set up at: 
Interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, said Thursday that Germany's largest cable MSO, Kabel Deutschland, has selected it as an end-to-end solution provider, in order to enhance its digital TV platform.
The Walt Disney Company announced Thursday that, via its ABC Enterprises subsidiary, it will join NBC Universal, News Corp. (Fox) and Providence Equity Partners as a joint venture partner in and equity owner of the popular broadband video service, Hulu. The deal means that CBS is now the only major US broadcast network not involved in Hulu, which, according to recent figures from comScore is now the third-most popular broadband video site after YouTube and Fox Interactive Media.
Broadcast network NBC's broadband video-enabled NBC.com Web site unveiled several new advertising capabilities and a new full-episode widget Tuesday (note: NBC recently announced that NBC.com's Rewind player had generated over a billion full episode streams over the past 18 months--see the story posted on itvt.com on April 16th). The company bills the new advertising capabilities as allowing brands to "stay front and center as users interact with the content around their favorite shows." They include:
During Time Warner's Q1 earnings call, Wednesday, the company's chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, provided an update on "TV Everywhere," its initiative to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on broadband and mobile platforms. "The idea is simple," Bewkes explained. "If you subscribe to a TV channel at home you can watch it for free on broadband from any provider, wherever and whenever you want, on-demand. With over 90% of US households already paying for television, programmers will be able to give consumers even more for their money," he continued.
VOD technology provider, Concurrent, on Tuesday released financial results for its fiscal third quarter, ended March 31st:
Cable channel, GSN (formerly known as the Game Show Network), announced Tuesday that comedian Howie Mandel will host its June 6th Game Show Awards (8:00PM ET, 7:00PM CT), which it bills as "the first awards show exclusively aimed at celebrating excellence in the genre of game shows."
ICT Results, an editorial service created by the European Commission to showcase European Union-funded research in information and communications technology (ICT), published a report, Wednesday, on an EU-funded project called 
UK satellite-TV provider, BSkyB (Sky), announced Tuesday that it is launching a green button-based "bookable" and "on-demand" advertising service that will allow viewers to easily access long-form advertising.
Cable channel, Bravo, has announced plans to hold a live "virtual viewing party" for the May 5th finale of its reality series, "The Real Housewives of New York City" (10:00PM ET/PT). During the show's broadcast, viewers will be invited to voice their opinions through Twitter, Facebook Connect and live mobile chat, and also to interact with one another through Facebook Connect.
Jason Hirschhorn, the former president of Sling Media's Entertainment Group who resigned from that position earlier this year, has been named chief product officer of News Corp.-owned social networking company, MySpace--in what may be a sign of MySpace's growing interest in providing broadband video programming and other digital entertainment content. Prior to joining Sling Media, where he was tasked with, among other things, implementing that company's broadband video entertainment service, Sling.com, Hirschhorn served as chief digital officer at MTV Networks, overseeing the company's digital media businesses, products and strategies.