OpenTV in Interactive TV Deal with India's Essel Group

--OpenTV Software to Power ITV on Essel's Dish TV, Siticable Services

Liberty Media-owned interactive TV middleware provider, OpenTV, has signed a multi-year license agreement with the companies comprising the Essel Group, India's largest cable and satellite TV operator, under which the latter will deploy a range of OpenTV software and services. The new deal represents OpenTV's first penetration of the Indian pay-TV market, which the company claims is the fastest-growing in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to OpenTV, the Essel Group will use its technologies to enable a range of interactive TV services, including multi-camera-angle viewing, gaming, interactive channels, push-VOD, PVR and EPG's. The services will initially be deployed on the Essel Group's Dish TV satellite service, which currently has over a million subscribers, and which OpenTV says has an anticipated annual growth rate of 100% per year "for the foreseeable future." Essel then plans to deploy similar, OpenTV-powered services to a portion of the subscriber base of its Siticable cable TV service (currently has around 6.5 million subscribers), as it converts the latter from analog to digital. According to Essel Group vice chairman, Jawahar Goel, the company hopes to offer a range of interactive services on Siticable in time for the latter's coverage of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The deal with Essel is based on a subscription model that OpenTV believes will provide it with a substantial recurring revenue stream: "With nearly 17% of the world's population, a fast-growing economy, and a middle class that has tripled in size in the last 20 years to some 300 million, the Indian market represents a tremendous opportunity for OpenTV and reinforces our strong market position in the Asia-Pacific region and globally," OpenTV CEO, Jim Chiddix, said in a prepared statement. "This deal also is among our first subscription model arrangements, under which we are paid monthly for each active set-top box that is deployed in the field for so long as that set-top box remains in service. We believe that this business model offers us more of a recurring revenue stream and should provide us with a better opportunity to increase our revenues in line with those of our customer's growing subscriber base. We look forward to supporting Essel as they accelerate the growth of the digital television market in India and other countries in the region."

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