<br–Service will Feature Programming Targeted at Minority Groups
US incumbent telco, Verizon, says that it is developing a pilot VOD service, dubbed "Community Studio," for its Microsoft-powered FiOS TV service (note: FiOS TV is now available in parts of California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Virginia), which will feature public interest and civil rights content targeted at ethnic minorities and other groups historically underserved by traditional television. The telco says that the concept for the new service, which is scheduled to launch later this quarter, emerged in discussions with over 35 civil rights leaders. "FiOS TV’s amazing capacity enables us to offer a wide variety of programming, including diverse content featuring voices from the public interest community," Kathryn C. Brown, Verizon’s SVP of public policy development and corporate responsibility, said in a prepared statement. "Our viewers will benefit from additional content choices, and the organizations will gain the opportunity to reach our diverse and growing subscriber base nationwide."
Verizon’s initial partners in developing programming for the new service are the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the American Association for People with Disabilities, the Black Leadership Forum and the Distance Learning Association. While these organizations will be able to offer programming on the service free of charge, Verizon says that it will accept that programming at its own discretion. As part of the Community Studio project, Verizon’s existing VOD service provider, TVN Entertainment (provides, among other things, backend support, transport and element management tools for Verizon’s VOD offering), will provide the organizations with an unspecified number of hours of encoding, asset management and distribution services.
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Filed under: Content
