Clearleap, an Atlanta-based company which offers a platform that is designed to enable pay-TV operators to significantly expand their programming line-ups by offering Internet video programming over their existing non-IP set-top boxes (the company claims to have raised $12.3 million in funding and financing to date), announced Monday that it is partnering with broadband video content providers, Next New Networks, Revision3 and blip.tv. The company, which has not yet publicly announced any operator customers, says that the new partnerships will result in the three content providers' programming being available to viewers "soon" on their cable, satellite or IPTV providers' VOD platforms. It promises that the new agreements will be the first in a series of content partnerships for its platform that it plans to announce over the coming weeks. "Each of these partners is a pioneer in the Web video space and has done an excellent job of cultivating a passionate following," Clearleap CEO, Braxton Jarratt, said in a prepared statement. "Their programming will give operators the high-profile, cutting-edge content the younger, social media savvy audience desires. We are thrilled to help expand their reach to more traditional TV audiences and give them an opportunity to create additional revenues."
According to Clearleap, its three new content partners will be able to use its flagship ClearFlow platform--which it claims integrates "seamlessly" with traditional TV infrastructures--to deliver their programming to traditional TV platforms via a simple MRSS feed (note: the company claims that operators who sign up for its service can implement it "with no new set-top box software, by leveraging existing network infrastructure"). Once programming has been delivered into its platform, the company says, it can then be made available to home viewers within minutes. Clearleap bills its platform as providing an automated system of content ingest, management and delivery that represents a "quantum leap forward" for MSO's who would typically use a "time-consuming and costly satellite- and tape-based workflow." The company offers the ClearFlow platform in conjunction with a service called ClearProfit, which it says enables insertion of ads into VOD content "with just a few mouse clicks, drastically reducing the time-to-market for ad campaigns from months to hours, and increasing the opportunities to deliver targeted advertising."
