Interactive TV News Round-Up (I): ABC, Prospect Park, BCM, itaas, Bluefin Labs

Because the [itvt] editorial team is on the road this week, we are covering stories in this edition of the newsletter in round-up format:

•  ABC said Thursday that it has licensed its canceled soap operas, "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," to production company, Prospect Park. Under the terms of the exclusive multi-year agreement, Prospect Park will take over production of "All My Children" (whose last broadcast episode on ABC will air September 23rd) and "One Life to Live (whose last broadcast episode on ABC will air in January), and distribute the shows to viewers "via online formats and additional emerging platforms including Internet-enabled television sets," ABC says. According to the broadcaster, its deal with Prospect Park ensures that the programs will "continue to be delivered with the same quality and in the same format and length" as before. "Technology changes the way the public can and will view television shows," Prospect Park founders Rich Frank and Jeff Kwatinetz, said in a prepared statement. "Now that there are so many devices available in addition to television sets, viewers are taking advantage of watching shows wherever they are and on any number of devices. The driving force in making the switch and attracting new audiences is to have outstanding programs that people want to watch. We believe that by continuing to produce the shows in their current hour format and with the same quality, viewers will follow the show to our new, online network."
• BCM (formerly known as BackChannelMedia)--a company that offers a patent-pending technology called Clickable TV, which allows viewers to forward or "bookmark" information from their TV to a personal Web portal or to their email account or smartphone--has announced that it has been named a technology partner for itaas's new iLaunch suite, which runs on the TVWorks EBIF platform (note: for more on iLaunch, see the article published on itvt.com, June 13th). "This interactive TV starter package will provide cable operators with the tools to quickly and easily implement applications using Enhanced Binary Interchange Format (EBIF) technology," BCM states in its press materials. "With the ability to select applications from the starter package, iLaunch offers cable operators access to an individualized EBIF application package that has been tested and offers ongoing support. With BCM as part of this package, operators can select BCM's Clickable TV as a part of their individualized application suite...By offering Clickable TV as part of the itaas iLaunch package, operators can feel confident that the application has been pre-tested to work in their system. This is essential as small and mid-sized cable companies need a turnkey solution to quickly and efficiently provide interactive EBIF opportunities for advertisers and consumers." Said BCM CTO, Madeleine Noland: "Clickable TV is an easy way for cable operators to start earning revenue on their EBIF infrastructure right away. With Clickable TV, consumers can click for additional information about a product or program on television and receive the info via email or on their smartphone within about 30 seconds of clicking. This allows advertisers and programmers to expand the power of their television messages, reaching their audiences with additional, immediate information and new experiences." A demo video of BCM's Clickable TV is embedded above.
• Bluefin Labs, a company that bills itself as "focused on the intersection of TV and social media," has launched a system of metrics--Response Level and Response Share--that it says are designed to quantify and contextualize social media response to linear TV. The company has also launched Bluefin Signals, a tool for accessing, interpreting and analyzing the data generated by its metrics. "The new set of metrics, Response Level and Response Share, enable the TV and advertising industries, for the first time, to measure and benchmark how audiences respond to television through conversations in public social media," Bluefin states in its press materials. "Similar to established industry metrics for television viewership size and viewership share, these new metrics serve not only to measure individual shows, but also provide a basis for benchmarking TV programs across a variety of contexts, such as dayparts, genres and networks. The metrics are defined as the following: 1) Response Level: A measurement of the number of commenters for any given episode of a show, based on a 10-point exponential scale. 2) Response Share: The percentage of a program's share of social response within a specific daypart...The calculation of Response Level and Response Share across the TV universe is enabled by the successful mapping of the TV Genome, that is, the comprehensive mapping of social media response back to its TV stimuli, which the company has achieved via its technology platform and cognitive science research efforts. Bluefin Signals is a Web-based analytics application that gives television networks, marketers and agencies the ability to explore and analyze the newly available data and benchmarks. Beyond providing a view of the new metrics, Bluefin Signals serves as a comprehensive application for analyzing social media responses to over 3,000 distinct TV shows and 105,000 individual airings of those shows. In addition to show-level and network-level analysis, users of Bluefin Signals can also explore data on 'cross-show engagement,' the analysis of audience affinity across the universe of TV shows." Bluefin claims to process and analyze over 3 billion social media comments each month. It says its platform also performs video fingerprinting of over 2 million minutes of linear TV each month on 47 US broadcast and cable networks. It promises that it will achieve full coverage of all shows and commercials in the national market by early next year.