time warner

Cloud-based interactive TV specialist, ActiveVideo Networks, announced Wednesday that it has appointed consumer electronics industry veteran, Henry Choy, as VP of business development, tasking him with leading a new strategic initiative to bring its CloudTV platform to consumer electronics devices (note: ActiveVideo's efforts to penetrate the cable industry appear to be enjoying some success--for more on the company's work with Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, see the interview wit

Comcast, the US's largest cable MSO, announced Thursday that Discovery Channel has joined its On Demand Online trial and is now making a selection of its full-length programming available online to trial participants.

Rob Jacobson, who has served as president and CEO of cable industry-owned VOD content-aggregator, iN DEMAND (note: the company's shareholders are Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable-Advance/Newhouse) since 2004, has left the company, following the expiration of his contract. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Bob Benya, SVP of video product strategy at Time Warner Cable, and iN DEMAND says that the search for a permanent replacement will "commence immediately."

Just days after announcing a similar deal with Starz Entertainment (see article published on itvt.com, July 13th), Comcast, the US's largest cable MSO, announced Monday that Home Box Office's HBO and Cinemax premium programming services will make a selection of their content available online, at no extra charge, to their subscribers who are also Comcast customers, under the auspices of the MSO's recently announced trial of a service called On Demand Online.

The US's second-largest cable operator, Time Warner Cable, and consumer electronics giant, Samsung, announced Monday that they have signed a "letter of commitment" for the continued development, purchase and deployment of Samsung tru2way-enabled set-top boxes, including the MSO's first second-source DVR. "We look to offer our customers advanced set-top boxes with features that are simple and easy to use," Mike Hayashi, Time Warner Cable's EVP of advanced engineering, said in a prepared statement.

Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications have conceded that they will not--as they had promised in a supposedly binding MOU with various consumer electronics/hardware manufacturers that was announced last spring--have tru2way technology deployed across their entire service footprints by July 1st, according to a report Tuesday by Todd Spangler in the US cable-industry trade publication, Multichannel News.

Time Warner announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Comcast to develop "broad principles" for the "TV Everywhere" model to guide the distribution of its television content online (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

Time Warner-owned Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) said Tuesday that it has promoted Andrew T. Heller, who previously served as the company's president of domestic distribution, to vice chairman, and tasked him with assuming "a coordinating role within Time Warner" on the "TV Everywhere" initiative.

Time Warner Cable's Hawaii system, Oceanic Time Warner Cable--which has a long history of pioneering innovative interactive TV technologies--has deployed an ITV offering based on technologies and services from ActiveVideo Networks (formerly ICTV).

--Radio Interview: ActiveVideo's Jeff Miller Discusses the Deployment

--Hires Ad-Industry Vet, Nisbet, to Lead New Arm Targeting Advertisers

ActiveVideo Networks (formerly ICTV), a company which offers
technologies that bring interactive Web media to television and which
claims that those technologies are now powering such hybrid services
for over a million cable and IPTV viewers, has announced an enhanced
version of its ActiveVideo Distribution Network. According to the
company, the new version of its platform will simplify and accelerate
the availability of Web-based programming and advertising on the
television and enable consumers to experience such services as
user-generated content, social media, Web-based channels, games and

--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