ICTV Expands its Business Development Team

ICTV has appointed three new vice presidents--Bob Beyer, Todd Hansley and Jody Stark--to its business development team. According to the company, the three new appointees have between them 52 years of experience with network operators, programming networks and technology vendors. They will be tasked with developing relationships with cable and IPTV operators and programmers for the deployment of applications based on ICTV's ActiveVideo platform: those applications include ActiveVideo Channels, which enable existing broadband video services to be delivered to the TV in real time, and ActiveVideo Mosaics, a customizable, personalized mosaic for video-rich navigation. (Note: ActiveVideo Channels and ActiveVideo Mosaics are delivered via a usage-based content distribution service, dubbed the ActiveVideo Distribution Network, that ICTV launched earlier this year. ICTV touts the AVDN as enabling operators, programmers and advertisers to bring broadband video programming and advertising models from the Internet--including ads that are targeted, auditable and interactive--to linear television and VOD. The service is based on the company's proprietary HeadendWare technology, and on a technology dubbed "InStream," which it obtained through its acquisition earlier this year of Switched Media. According to ICTV, the AVDN is entirely standards-based and runs within existing Web and VOD infrastructures, acquiring programming and applications from standard Web servers, mixing it with live and VOD elements, and delivering it from the headend as MPEG video. It can easily be integrated with existing set- top box-based interactive TV technologies, the company says. According to ICTV, viewers can use their remotes to select an ActiveVideo channel from a standard EPG, and enter a "broadband experience" that integrates video, navigational elements, channel branding, banner ads, and links to multiple video segments. Screens can be manipulated to reflect personal viewing interests and purchasing preferences, and can also be powered by recommendation engines based on viewer preferences, the company says. Ads within this "broadband experience" are, of course, fully interactive, with features such as "telescoping.")

Beyer, a 22-year cable-industry veteran, was previously VP of sales at Big Band Networks. Prior to that, he spent 18 years in programming, operations, new business development and marketing at Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Adelphia. Hansley, a 19-year industry veteran, was most recently a senior executive with GoldPocket Interactive (now part of Tandberg Television), where, according to ICTV, he created distribution strategies and spearheaded new interactive services and product offerings for broadband video, cable, satellite and IPTV. His career also includes stints as VP of sales and marketing at VOD equipment provider, nCUBE (now part of C-COR), and as director of affiliate sales and marketing at ESPN. Stark, meanwhile, was previously SVP of strategy and business development at UK-based interactive TV and mobile entertainment company, YooMedia (note: YooMedia is an ICTV partner; the companies have a joint-venture in the UK, called BroadbandTV Group--see [itvt] Issue 6.54 Part 2). Prior to that, he ran the Media and Entertainment practice for Blast Radius, a company that leverages technology to automate sales, marketing and customer service for corporate clients. Before that, he co-founded Initech Consulting, a developer of strategic media technology plans for content companies, and founded Viziworx, a provider of interactive TV authoring services that was subsequently acquired by ACTV (now part of OpenTV). He also served as SVP of business development at Mixed Signals Technology.

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