RCN Launches The Jewish Channel on its VOD Platform

Overbuilder/triple-play provider, RCN, has launched The Jewish Channel on its VOD platform. "We are extremely pleased to have The Jewish Channel made available to RCN's subscribers," The Jewish Channel CEO, Elie Singer, said in a prepared statement. "RCN consumers reflect the diversity that has made this country great, and Jewish subscribers are clearly an important part of RCN's subscriber base. We're pleased that RCN has expanded its rich offering to include the wonderful movies, programs and news available on The Jewish Channel."

The subscription-based service (note: RCN also recently launched a free, Jewish-themed VOD service, Shalom TV--see article published on itvt.com, June 23rd) offers movies and documentaries, including subtitled movies from Israel; original series; and news and commentary shows. Its programming is billed as targeted at "every member of the Jewish family across all denominations," and as "provid[ing] a closer look at the issues affecting the Jewish community today while also exploring the past, allowing viewers to deepen their connection to their cultural identity." Program offerings include "Modern Jewish Mom," which features segments on food and wind, the holidays, Jewish books, bar- and bat-mitzvah planning, Judaica and current Jewish trends; "Holy Dazed," billed as a "hilarious look at Jewish life" and featuring celebrities like Richard Kind, Judy Gold and Gail Simmons, as well as editors from New York Magazine and Huffington Post; "Rabbis Roundtable," which features inter-denominational discussions between rabbis on topical issues; and "Week in Review," a news review show.

In other US VOD news:

• Cable industry-owned VOD content-aggregator, iN DEMAND (note: the company's shareholders are Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable-Advance/Newhouse), has announced plans to release four movies this month day-and-date with their home-video DVD release: "Obsessed" (8/4), "17 Again" (8/11), "The Last House on the Left" (8/18) and "Duplicity" (8/25). The company--which says that such day-and-date releases are "a trend that is on the rise"--also recently secured day-and-date releases for "Watchmen," "Gran Torino," "Friday the 13th," "Inkheart," "Yes Man," "Frost/Nixon," "Bride Wars" and "A Plumm Summer." "Starting in mid-2007, there were only 15 titles offered to cable's video-on-demand platform the same time as DVD," iN DEMAND EVP, David Asch, said in a prepared statement. "In 2008, there were 73 day-and-date titles. If current trends hold, we expect to present significantly more than 100 day-and-date titles to cable viewers during the year 2009." So far this year, iN DEMAND says, 30% of cable VOD titles from major studios have been offered day-and-date.
• According to a report in the US cable-industry trade publication, Multichannel News, Sunday, Fox Reality Channel will for the first time premiere an original series on VOD. Starting August 3rd--i.e. 12 days in advance of the show's linear-TV premiere--the channel will make its new reality series, "Househusbands of Hollywood," available on Comcast's, Time Warner Cable's, Cox's, DISH Network's, Verizon FiOS's and AT&T U-verse's digital platforms (which collectively reach around 30 million customers). In addition, the series' other nine episodes will be made available on-demand the day after their linear broadcast. The show will be offered in both SD and HD. Fox Reality's VP of advanced services, Will Flannery, told Multichannel News that, in exchange for the on-demand preview of the new series, at least one of the operators is providing the series with promotion in the form of cross-channel spots, EPG and menu advertising and mailers.