Thought

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.

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.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week's column features Peter Flood, head of business development for North America at Playcast Media, discussing how that company's technology enables video games--including sophisticated console games--to be played on legacy set-top boxes.

[itvt] will be taking a break until Monday, January 4th--though we may publish an issue or two in the interim, depending on how much news breaks over the next week-and-a-half.

We'd like to wish our readers, advertisers and sponsors a very happy holiday and a happy and prosperous new year, and also to thank you for your support over the past year. And, of course, we look forward to seeing many of you in person at the fourth annual TV of Tomorrow Show, which we'll be holding in San Francisco, March 3rd and 4th.

Cheers,

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

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, The iTV Doctor Is In! This week, in the second part of a three-part series, Arthur Orduna, CTO of Canoe Ventures; Bill Seely, principal of Practical Marketing Analytics; and Ellen Dudar, chief product officer of FourthWall Media, project themselves into the future and attempt to answer the question: What was the single most significant factor

The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time restraints, we are covering a number of this issue's news stories in round-up/summary form. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule in the coming days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:

According to Nielsen's latest Three Screen Report, 57% of consumers with Internet access at home watch TV and go online simultaneously at least once a month. On average, the report states (citing data generated by Nielsen's Convergence Research Panel), these consumers spend 2 hours, 39 minutes per month simultaneously surfing the Internet and watching TV; and their online experience at home is in front of the TV almost a third (27.9%) of the time.

Interactive TV and conditional access technology provider, NDS, announced Tuesday that Australian pay-TV operator, Foxtel (which employs OpenTV middleware alongside various interactive technologies from NDS), has chosen its NDS Dynamic Audience Measurement System, integrated with TNS Media Research's RaPiDView audience measurement service, to track and analyze audience behavior across its network and to enable the introduction of advanced advertising products.

Rovi (formerly Macrovision--for more on the company's name change and the repositioning it heralds, see the interview with Rovi chief evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle, that was published on itvt.com, July 16th) announced Wednesday that it is partnering with TNS Media Research to develop advanced TV and set-top box measurement solutions.

UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has published its sixth annual Communications Market Report. Among the TV-related highlights:

[itvt] has just published in-depth audio interviews with Ian Blaine, founder and CEO of Comcast-owned white-label video management and publishing company, thePlatform; and with Sam Pemberton, CEO of Softel, a company best known to [itvt] readers for its MediaSphere interactive TV playout solutions (it also offers solutions for subtitling and captioning, audio description,

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project released a report Wednesday that details how rapidly usage of online video services has grown over the past few years. According to the report:

Multiscreen media measurement and research company, Rentrak, reported Wednesday that June was the most-viewed month for VOD in the US so far this year, seeing over 589 million transactions (note: Rentrak defines transactions as a "combination of views and orders as reported by [its] MSO partners")--which the company claims is a record. During that month, there was an average of 16.5 minutes of on-demand viewing per day per active unique set-top box, the company says, which represents a 1.5-minute-per-set-top box viewing increase when compared to May. Free-on-demand children's programming saw a 7% increase in transactions over May and also enjoyed its strongest month of the year, according to Rentrak, with over 106 million transactions.

DVR vendor/service provider, TiVo, announced Tuesday that it is partnering with Quantcast, a company that provides a Web-audience measurement service focused on enabling addressable advertising, to offer advertisers and media companies a comprehensive cross-platform audience-analysis solution that will evaluate the correlation between TV viewership and online activity.