Advertising

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

Comcast Media Center (CMC) said Tuesday that its HITS AxIS service is now ready to support the commercial deployment of interactive TV services by cable operators. HITS AxIS--whose name stands for "Headend In The Sky Advanced Interactive Services," and which was developed in collaboration with Vidiom and TVWorks--is a centralized platform that operates on the NAS and DAC headend-management platforms and that is designed to facilitate the deployment and management of ETV/EBIF and OCAP/tru2way applications on cable systems serving small- to mid-sized markets.

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

New York-area MSO, Cablevision, said Tuesday that its new interactive TV advertising service, Optimum Select (see the article published on itvt.com, September 16th), is proving popular with advertisers--attracting such brands as Unilever, Gillette, Century 21 (the retailer, not the real estate company) and Benjamin Moore, which are using it to provide samples, coupons and gift cards to viewers who interact with their ads.

At the VideoSchmooze event in New York City Tuesday evening, Comcast's SVP of new media, Matt Strauss, said that the MSO will leave decisions about commercial placement in programming offered via On Demand Online, its implementation of the TV Everywhere distribution model, in the hands of programmers, according to a report by Todd Spangler in Multichannel News (note: the "TV Everywhere" model, which has long been championed by Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, seeks to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on mu

Multiscreen media analysis, operations and publishing technology provider, Digitalsmiths, on Wednesday launched a new version of its flagship VideoSense product that has been designed expressly to support the "TV Everywhere" content distribution model (note: the "TV Everywhere" model, which has long been championed by Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, seeks to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on multiple platforms, and thus aims to head off the threat posed to pay-TV services by the increasing availability of over-the-top programming--for more background, see the articles published on itvt.com, April 30th, May 14th, June 25th an

Advanced advertising technology provider, BlackArrow, announced Tuesday that its VOD ad insertion platform has gone live with Comcast in Jacksonville, Florida.

Interactive online video advertising technology provider, Mixpo, will today announce a deal with TV broadcast company, Gray Television (operates 36 TV stations, 17 of which are CBS affiliates, 10 of which are NBC affiliates, eight of which are ABC affiliates, and one of which is a Fox affiliate), which it says will bring interactive online video advertising capabilities to local TV advertisers in 30 markets across the US.

France Telecom's Orange brand announced Wednesday that it has launched an interactive TV advertising service on its ADSL-based IPTV platform, following a successful trial with automaker, Citroen, last November that encompassed 100,000 French households.

SinglePoint, a company which specializes in mobile-based interactive and participation TV, and which last year was chosen by NBC Universal to provide mobile interactive TV services across a broad range of its programming and channels, said Wednesday that its SingleBrand Ad Marketplace, which launched less than a year ago, is gaining significant momentum. According to the company, the total number of unique users for the service has reached 11 million, and SMS advertising has doubled each month since its launch.

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 an in-depth interview with Stuart Waite, head of interactive media at Alcatel-Lucent, and Mark Janes, the director of business development and marketing for the company's Digital Media and Advertising Product division.

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), last week announced the formation of a "Partnership for Innovation in Television Advertising" with the VCU Brandcenter, the graduate advertising and branding program of the School of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. According to the company, the partnership is intended to support VCU Brandcenter educational activities that are designed to teach graduate students to apply new technologies that are transforming television into a more compelling and competitive marketing medium.

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

New York-area MSO, Cablevision, on Wednesday announced the launch of a new interactive TV advertising service called Optimum Select.