VOD technology provider, SeaChange International, said Wednesday that its content-services subsidiary, On Demand Group (ODG), has signed a new four-year contract to provide content management services for UK cable operator Virgin Media's VOD service. ODG has been providing content management services--including rights management, editorial service management, promo production, encoding, metadata generation and content preparation--for the service since the latter's launch in February, 2007. The company says that its VZ VOD Content Management System, combined with SeaChange's TV Business System VOD marketing platform, provides a "seamless" workflow for the management of Virgin's VOD offering.
Virgin claims that its VOD service is the largest outside North America. The company says that its 3.5 million digital subscribers watched over half a billion on-demand programs last year, and that the service's popularity grew by 60% (note: for a round-up of recent VOD news from Virgin Media, see the article published on itvt.com on April 16th). "We are very pleased to extend our successful working relationship with Virgin Media," ODG CEO, Tony Kelly, said in a prepared statement. "We are working together on a range of exciting innovations, including full end-to-end digital delivery of assets, and look forward to helping continue the exciting growth of the Virgin Media TV On Demand service." Added Katharine Burns-Rivington, Virgin Media's executive director of content acquisition: "ODG has a track record of successfully handling content management services on our behalf, so we are pleased to continue working with them."
