News Round-Up

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

• UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, ITV, said last week that it has commissioned its ITV Studios arm to produce three Webisodes "depicting alternative scenes for bad boy Corrie character Tony Gordon’s current attack of conscience storyline." The Webisodes will be available at http://www.itv.com/corrie, starting November 9th. "Using one script," the broadcaster says, "each three-minute Webisode is performed and interpreted in a different way so that while the words are the same the complexity of Tony's character is revealed in three very different performances." In addition, immediately after the November 19th "Coronation Street" episode, in which the Tony Gordon storyline reaches its climax, ITV.com will host a live chat with the show's producer, Kim Crowther (note: the live chat will start just before the episode begins airing at 8:30PM, and Crowther will join it once the episode ends at 9:00PM).
• Espial, the Canadian digital TV software company that last year bought US IPTV and video-on-demand technology provider, Kasenna (note: the deal valued Kasenna, which had raised $90 million in funding since its launch in 2000, at around $6.5 million), has released its third-quarter financial results: Revenues totaled $2.9 million, compared to $3.7 million for the year-ago quarter (the company said that the figure for the year-ago quarter included $0.7 million in non-recurring professional services); EBITDA was a loss of $0.5 million, vs. a loss of $0.6 million for the year-ago quarter; and net losses totaled $1 million, or $0.07 per share, compared to net losses of $0.9 million, or $0.06 per share, for the year-ago quarter. More detail is available here.
• SeaChange International and RGB Networks have announced that Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC) has deployed their products in order to deliver more HDTV programming to its cable subscribers and to generate new ad revenues by inserting ads from local advertisers into its programming. HTC is the first operator to deploy a SeaChange/RGB turnkey digital advertising insertion solution that is the result of a recent reseller agreement between the two companies.
• Sonic Solutions, the digital media company that last year acquired the pioneering broadband VOD service, CinemaNow (it subsequently added "Roxio" to the service's name in order to make its branding consistent with its other products), has released financial results for its fiscal second quarter (2010), ended September 30th: Revenues totaled $26.1 million, compared to $31.1 million for the year-ago quarter; and net losses totaled $0.2 million, or $0.01 per share, compared to losses of $3.7 million, or $0.14 per share, for the year-ago quarter. More detail is available here.
• During Time Warner Cable's Q3 earnings conference call, the company's COO, Landel Hobbs, revealed that it is set to roll out Promotions On Demand--an interactive TV advertising service which it has deployed in Southern California and which is headed up by Hans Fischmann, the general manager of its Digital Marketing Solutions group--more widely. According to Hobbs, the service is enjoying "good traction." CED Magazine's Brian Santo has more from the conference call.
• TiVo has submitted an FCC filing for an 802.11n wireless access point. Engadget (which dug up the filing) and Dave Zatz have more. "At long last, it seems as if high-speed network access is coming to the heralded DVR, with an AN0100 802.11n AP recently splashing down at the FCC," Engadget's Darren Murph writes. "There's no instruction manual or indication of whether this is the device we've been waiting for in order to stream networked media to the TV through one's TiVo, but why else would the outfit bother with tossing out a new dongle with support for higher throughput?"