ICTV Rebrands as ActiveVideo Networks

--Unveils Expanded Portfolio of Programming and Applications

--Says New Study Shows its Interactive Programming Engages Viewers

--Integrates Technologies with Camiant

ICTV, a Silicon Valley-based company that offers solutions for
bringing Web media to television, has renamed itself ActiveVideo
Networks, in order to reflect the branding of its flagship product,
ActiveVideo, which has been the company's primary focus over the
past two years. (Note: the company's ActiveVideo technology mixes
linear and on-demand programming with broadband content from the
Internet, and delivers it to the television set as personalized MPEG
video streams. Because content can be created and modified using
standard Web tools and creatives, the company claims, network
operators, programmers and advertisers can create content once for
delivery via the company's ActiveVideo Distribution Network to any
cable or IPTV set-top box, regardless of hardware, software and EPG
differences. Viewers can then navigate through, and interact with, the
individual elements of the stream, using key clicks of their remote
controls. The company bills ActiveVideo channels as allowing
"network operators and programmers to provide an unlimited variety of
content in a personalized experience that includes access to entire
libraries of video, navigational elements, channel branding, targeted,
interactive banner advertisements, and links to ad showcases.")

The company announced its rebranding at the NCTA Cable Show and
tru2way Developers Conference in New Orleans last month.
"Television today is undergoing the single greatest transformation in its
history," Jeff Miller, president and CEO of ActiveVideo Networks, said
in a prepared statement. "As network operators and programmers are
driven by viewers to move beyond linear programming, the challenge is
to bring to television the array of voices and choices that viewers enjoy
on the Web. ActiveVideo Networks is uniquely positioned to enable
television to keep up with its audience." Added the company's
chairman, Gary Lauder: "Given the dramatic changes that the company
has undergone as we've grown to serve more than one million
households over the past few years, it's important that our name
accurately convey our vision of the future of TV. Our merger with
Switched Media, our launch of the ActiveVideo brand, our creation of
the ActiveMedia Group to develop programming, and even our move to
downtown San Jose, have positioned ActiveVideo Networks to be a
major contributor to a universe of unparalleled choice and control for
television viewers."

ICTV/ActiveVideo Networks bills the ActiveVideo platform as
allowing the TV viewing experience to be shaped by "a wide range of
entities," including traditional and broadband video programmers, local
cable affiliates, consumer electronics companies, advertisers, social
networks and audiences themselves. It claims that the platform
provides viewers with a "completely interactive" environment that
includes such features as rich interfaces, optimized for remote control
navigation; social networking; personal media; niche content; and
targeted, actionable advertising. Programmers that are currently
offering ActiveVideo services include Fox, CNN, HSN, TAG
Networks, Reuters, and AccuWeather.

In other ActiveVideo Networks news:

• At the Cable Show, the company unveiled a significantly expanded
  portfolio of ActiveVideo programming and applications. Its booth
  featured demos of around 20 applications (around three times the
  number it demo'd at the previous year's show), all of which leveraged
  various elements of the Web environment and were billed as enabling
  operators and programmers to attract audience interest and generate
  new targeted advertising revenues. The new apps on display included:
  1) social networking functionality that allows viewers to link their TV
  viewing with their online communities and share recommendations
  of TV shows, movies and other media; 2) VOD menuing that enables
  viewers to sample VOD content through rich media, trailers and
  metadata, and that also offers search functionality; and 3) various
  ActiveVideo channels and advertising showcases, which the company
  bills as immersing viewers in specific, relevant content to create
  customized and personalized experiences, and enabling them to learn
  more about a show or product (or make a purchase) via keyclicks on
  standard remote controls. Other apps on display included Personalized
  Mosaic, a customizable, video-rich navigational interface; a
  shop-by-remote application; games from TAG Networks; and
  high-definition, persona-based home screens. "Our evolution
  from ICTV to ActiveVideo Networks over the past year has reflected
  our growing ability to provide not just the technology, but also the
  content that will drive the next generation of television," Jeff Miller
  said in a prepared statement. "The dramatically increased number of
  applications, programming and partnerships we are demonstrating at
  the Cable Show underscores the unique ability of ActiveVideo to
  deliver television that keeps up with its audience."

  

• The company also used the Cable Show and the tru2way Developers
  Conference to demonstrate its commitment to the US cable industry's
  ETV standard. According to the company, its combined
  ActiveVideo/ETV solution "brings together the local execution of ETV
  applications and the power of server-side processing to enable
  operators to provide unparalleled interactive and personalized
  video-rich applications to any digital set-top box." Its demos at the
  show were designed to show how ETV and ActiveVideo, working in
  tandem, can be used to enable viewers to 1) "seamlessly" move
  between linear programs and an expansive interactive environment that
  can simultaneously include Web and linear video, advertising
  showcases, polling and other features; 2) jump from a linear
  commercial to an "advertainment" showcase of related video features
  and advertisements that also allows purchases; 3) continue watching
  linear programming and advertisements while engaging with interactive
  content; and 4) pause a VOD program, enter a related interactive
  feature or advertisement, and return to the program at the point they
  exited it. According to ActiveVideo Networks, its new ActiveVideo
  ETV client uses the standard User Agent to trigger and execute viewer
  experiences: the client is implemented as a standard EBIF application,
  the company says, with no ActiveVideo-specific integration work or
  code necessary in the set-top box. "The combination of ActiveVideo
  and ETV applications significantly strengthens cable's value
  proposition by creating an environment that can deliver high-value
  targeted, interactive advertising and rich video programming to any
  digital set-top box," Jeff Miller said in a prepared statement.
• The company has released the results of an initial study (note: the
  study used both online and broadcast metrics) which it says
  demonstrates the ability of its ActiveVideo Distribution Network to
  generate strong viewer involvement. The study utilized Unica's
  NetInsight Web analytics solution to generate actual usage data from
  set-top boxes, rather than relying on samples. It analyzed data on
  ActiveVideo usage collected in what the company describes as a "tier 2
  United States market," starting January 1st, 2008. According to
  ActiveVideo Networks, the study showed that 63% of
  ActiveVideo-enabled households have accessed content delivered by
  the service; that the average length of an ActiveVideo session during
  the period tracked by the study was 16 minutes, 25 seconds; and that
  more than 90% of viewers who accessed the service made repeat visits.
  In addition, ActiveVideo claims, the study showed that ActiveVideo
  has demonstrated an ability to perform favorably within the traditional
  cable programming environment: according to the company, during the
  measurement week of April 13th-19th, from 6:00 to 7:00PM on
  Saturday, April 19th, more than 6% of available households engaged
  with ActiveVideo content. That content achieved a 9.7 cumulative
  audience rating during that measurement week, the company says. In
  addition, ActiveVideo Networks claims that the study showed that
  ActiveVideo's average usage of 2 hours, 47 minutes per month was
  greater than that of a number of high-profile Web brands, including
  Google, eBay and YouTube. "While the data we have collected for this
  initial analysis reflect activity only in a single market, we believe that it
  underscores both the 'stickiness' of Web content and interactivity on
  television, and the value to advertisers of measurements that bridge the
  online and television environments," ActiveVideo Networks' chief
  strategy officer, Ed Forman, said in a prepared statement. "We're seeing
  that our ability to generate real viewer involvement and collect
  auditable results is creating an environment that can stimulate increased
  advertiser involvement with interactive television."
• The company says that, together with Camiant, a provider of policy
  control and application assurance technology for service providers, it
  has completed integration testing of a joint offering that the companies
  claim will simplify the delivery of new, Web media-based interactive
  TV services by cable operators. The offering integrates the
  ActiveVideo Distribution Network with Camiant's Universal Edge
  Resource Manager (UERM) solution, and, according to the companies
  the integration ensures that operators that use the UERM solution will
  be able to deploy ActiveVideo, thus "leveraging their existing
  investment in edge QAM's, and with no impact on existing services."
  "The deployment of interactive services that bring the Web media
  experience to the television is a threshold that is now being crossed by
  cable operators," Randy Fuller, Camiant's VP of business development,
  said in a prepared statement. "With the completion of our integration
  with ICTV, our Universal Edge Resource Manager solution is able to
  provide increased assurance that operators can deploy and generate new
  revenues from ActiveVideo while maintaining the highest quality of
  service across all product lines." Added ActiveVideo Networks' SVP of
  business development, Michael Taylor: "As cable operators deliver the
  advanced services that will help them to maintain their competitive
  edge, the network management and policy control that enable multiple
  services to share a single pool of bandwidth are becoming more critical
  than ever. The Camiant UERM solution significantly increases the
  ability of operators to efficiently deploy and manage ActiveVideo in a
  way that is complementary to switched digital video, VOD, EBIF and
  tru2way services."