Industry

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, NBC Universal's VP of digital distribution, Michael Aaronson, provides a detailed overview of how the broadcaster brought interactive TV coverage of the Winter Olympics to AT&T U-verse TV, Cablevision, Comcast, DirecTV, DISH Network, Oceanic Time Warner Cable, and Verizon FiOS TV.

In addition:

[itvt] is pleased to announce the schedule of sessions for The TV of Tomorrow Show 2010 (March 3rd-4th, San Francisco). The schedule is included in full below.

Our PDF version can be downloaded here.

Tickets are now at FULL PRICE of $1275. Tickets can be purchased here.

[itvt] has just published a radio interview with Braxton Jarratt, co-founder and CEO of Clearleap, an Atlanta-based company which offers a technology platform for bringing Internet-sourced video content to television sets.

During Comcast's conference call with financial analysts following the release of its Q4, 2009 results, Wednesday, CEO, Brian Roberts, and COO, Steve Burke, provided a brief update on the status of its interactive TV deployments and plans.

"We will...continue to invest in our network, extending our technical capabilities even further, more widely deploying EBIF technology, for instance, to support interactive TV and advertising," Roberts stated in his presentation. "And through our newly formed Comcast Labs we will focus on extending and integrating IP technology in order to improve the customer experience, accelerate the pace at which we introduce new products, and expand our cross-platform experiences."

Revision3--a company which bills itself as "an actual TV network for the Web," and which produces its own original, broadcast-quality programming--announced Tuesday that viewership of shows on its service climbed to nearly 1.5 billion minutes for 2009 (it says its shows were viewed nearly 70 million times during the year) and that, despite the recessionary economy, its revenues grew 30%. The company also said that, on the ad sales side, it "increased its average deal by 50%" and added such major brands as Klondike, Ford, Adidas, Coors, Patron, Nokia and Panasonic to its brand advertising roster.

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of recent news in various categories:

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of the latest VOD news:

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of regulatory/government news for the past few days:

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of interactive TV content news for the past few days:

In an interview with Bloomberg News that was published Wednesday, Anthony Wood, CEO of over-the-top company, Roku, revealed that the company hopes to raise $30 million in private funding this quarter from Menlo Ventures and other sources, and that it may go public next year--though he added that it is not currently working with an investment bank and has yet to set a date for an IPO.

Canoe Ventures, the company tasked with implementing the US cable industry's plans for interactive and addressable advertising (note: its backers are Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision and Bright House), announced Wednesday that it has appointed John Redpath as SVP and general counsel.

TAG Networks--an interactive TV games company that has developed a games-on-demand channel, called TAG, which it says integrates with existing VOD infrastructures (note: the company has a history of working closely with ActiveVideo Networks and is involved in the latter's deployments with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision)--contacted [itvt] Tuesday to let us know that new TNS data, measuring daily time spent viewing per set-top box, show that the TAG channel topped 43 linear channels available through Time Warner Cable's Hawaiian arm, Oceanic Time Warner Cable, for the most minutes viewers spent watching.

Sonic Solutions, the digital media company that in 2008 acquired the pioneering broadband VOD service/platform, CinemaNow (it subsequently added "Roxio" to the service's name in order to make its branding consistent with its other products), announced Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with Canadian movie theater chain operator, Cineplex Entertainment. According to the company, the deal sees Cineplex licensing the Roxio CinemaNow platform to power a new movie streaming and download service at http://www.cineplex.com, that will make content available on a range of connected devices and that is scheduled to launch later this year. The service will be targeted at the Canadian market.

Cross-platform creative company, 84ºWest, says that it has formed a strategic partnership with digital TV media planning and implementation company, Leap Media Group.

Akoo, a Chicago-based company that operates a social music television network for out-of-home environments (note: earlier this month, the company announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has awarded it a patent covering "an apparatus and method of using mobile devices to select on-demand content and socially interact with programming across networked digital video and Internet protocol television services through SMS text messaging or mobile applications"--see the article published on itvt.com, January 14th), on Monday announced the results of an advertising effectiveness study that focuses on the social TV space.