Financials

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, announced Monday that Bresnan Communications, the US's 13th-largest MSO (it has approximately 300,000 subscribers), has deployed its OpenTV EclipsePlus campaign management system to manage its advertising sales operations. The existence of an EclipsePlus deal with Bresnan was first revealed by OpenTV CEO, Ben Bennett, during the company's Q3 earnings conference call earlier this month (see the article published on itvt.com, November 4th).

The BBC on Wednesday unveiled a new digital initiative, called @North, that is designed to boost the interactive/multiplatform TV industry in the north of England, the region in which Salford--the city to which a number of BBC departments, including Future Media & Technology and Children's, are scheduled to move in 2011--is located.

Sezmi, a company that has developed a set-top box-based offering which it bills as "combining traditional TV content, movies and Internet video in a single, easy-to-use product and service," said Monday that it has secured $25 million in new funding from new and existing investors. The company--which last year announced that it had raised $33 million in an earlier funding round--also announced Monday that it has made its "all-in-one personalized television service" available via a public pilot in Los Angeles, in preparation for a nationwide launch next year.

The Kudelski Group announced Friday that it has successfully completed its tender offer to acquire the Class A shares of interactive TV middleware and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, that it does not already own for $1.55. According to the company, when its tender offer expired on November 12th, OpenTV shareholders had tendered approximately 56,382,588 shares (including 8,277,113 shares subject to guaranteed delivery procedures), representing approximately 60% of the Class A shares not already owned by Kudelski. "Upon the acquisition of those shares validly tendered and not withdrawn," Kudelski says, it will own approximately 91% of the voting rights in OpenTV.

The Kudelski Group on Monday published a document in which it enumerates various "severe challenges ahead for OpenTV" as a standalone company, should Kudelski's tender offer to acquire all the company's outstanding Class A shares for $1.55 per share in cash not succeed.

Los Angeles-based start-up, Clicker Media (note: the company, which says that it aims to become "the complete programming guide to Internet television," claims to catalog all broadcast programming available online, together with TV-quality Web originals, movies and music videos, and to deliver them "in one seamless, organized experience that includes more than 350,000 episodes, from over 5,000 shows, from over 1,000 networks, in over 1,000 categories"; it is currently inviting sign-ups from beta users), announced last week that Blake Krikorian has joined its board and has also invested an undisclosed amount in the company.

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, has released its third-quarter financial results:

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

NBC Universal's financial news channel, CNBC, has become the latest broadcaster to launch a free, interactive application for the Apple iPhone/iPod touch. Dubbed the CNBC Real-Time App, the app is billed as providing:

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

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

The Kudelski Group said Monday that its wholly owned subsidiary, Kudelski Interactive Cayman, Ltd., has commenced a tender offer to acquire all outstanding Class A shares of interactive TV middleware and applications provider, OpenTV, not already owned by Kudelski, for $1.55 per share in cash (note: Kudelski is OpenTV's largest shareholder: it has an approximately 32.3% stake in the company that gives it approximately 77.2% voting control). The bid values OpenTV at approximately $215 million.

Delivery Agent, a company that specializes in developing what it calls "shopping-enabled" entertainment (i.e.

Mirada, the Anglo-Spanish interactive TV company that was formed via the merger of YooMedia and Fresh IT (for extensive background on the merger, see [itvt] Issue 7.87 Part 3), released financial results, Tuesday, for the 12-month period, ended March 31st.

Communications technology company, Arris, announced last week that it has reached a deal to acquire Digeo, the Paul Allen-backed set-top box company best known for its flagship Moxi product line's Emmy-winning interface (which replaces the standard "spreadsheet" EPG interface with a so-called "cross-hairs" configuration, consisting of two intersecting animated lines at right angles to each other: customers use the left and right arrow keys on their remote control to scroll through a series of customizable categories--dubbed "filters" by the company--on the horizontal line: e.g.