BT Vision in VOD Deal with Twentieth Century Fox

UK incumbent telco, BT, said last week that it has signed a VOD deal with Twentieth Century Fox that will make a number of the latter's shows available on BT Vision, the telco's Microsoft Mediaroom-powered, interactive TV-enabled hybrid IPTV service (note: the service is enabled via a hybrid set-top box that allows viewers to access linear channels from the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, alongside IP-delivered on-demand and interactive content).

Shows covered by the deal include "24" (four seasons), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Prison Break" and "The X-Files." Several series of each show will be available at no extra charge to subscribers to BT Vision's TV Pack bundle. "These iconic series will captivate BT Vision viewers, and we are thrilled to have them as part of BT's TV Pack," Gina Brogi, Fox's SVP of worldwide pay television, said in a prepared statement. Earlier this month, BT also announced a VOD deal for BT Vision with NBC Universal (see the article published on itvt.com, December 2nd).

In other VOD news: Canadian cable operator, Rogers Communications, has begun carrying an HD VOD service, called Mood on Demand (channel 100), that offers images of artworks from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (note: GalleryPlayer, a US company that offered a similar fine-art-on-demand service, ceased operations in 2008). According to press materials from Mood on Demand, users of the new service have "three viewing choices: a gallery-like slide-show presentation where all the work can be viewed and compared; a travel through each picture as the camera takes us seemingly inside each painting; [and] a brilliantly engaging view of a single image at a time." Some background on Mood on Demand is available here.