time warner cable

[itvt] has just published the first in a new series of columns from "The iTV Doctor Is In" columnist, Rick Howe. Entitled "The iTV Doctor: Profiles" and sponsored by HSN, the columns will profile various prominent figures in the interactive TV industry, starting with Joan Gillman, president of media sales at Time Warner Cable.

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of recent news in various categories:

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of the latest VOD news:

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, The iTV Doctor Is In! This week, the iTV Doctor, along with Will Kreth, senior director of advanced video strategy at Time Warner Cable and founder of OEDN (the OCAP/EBIF Developer Network), and Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research at Ball State University's Center for Media and Design, project themselves into the future and attempt to answer the question: What was the single most significant factor that led to interactive TV's success in 2012?

The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time restraints, we have decided to focus our editorial efforts this week on news that has been less widely covered (or not covered anywhere else at all). Three of the more widely covered news stories from the past few days are covered in summary/round-up form below. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule over the next few days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:

[itvt] would like to alert our readers to two videos that were recently posted to YouTube by Will Kreth, senior director of advanced video strategy at Time Warner Cable and founder of OEDN.net (note: the name is an acronym for "OCAP/EBIF Developer Network), an organization which is attempting to drive application development efforts using the US cable industry's OCAP/tru2way and EBIF middleware standards and whose backers include Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Charter and Bright House.

Time Warner Cable said Tuesday that it has launched its Start Over service on its Raleigh, South Carolina networks. The service, which is offered at no extra charge, allows customers to restart a program in progress without any pre-planning and without using any CPE-based recording devices. At launch, it is enabled on 10 channels: Fox Movie Channel, Fine Living, Hallmark, Boomerang, National Geographic, TruTV, Noggin, Biography, Showtime, and TMC East. However, Time Warner Cable says that it hopes to enable it on 50 channels by the end of the year.

Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, announced Thursday that its EclipsePlus advertising campaign management solution has been selected by Time Warner Cable to manage its advertising sales operations across all its regional operating centers (ROC's) in the continental US, which represent around 12.3 million subscribers, or approximately 97% of the cable MSO's total subscriber base. OpenTV says that EclipsePlus--which it bills as enabling large cable advertising operations to manage multichannel ad campaigns more efficiently and with minimal resource requirements--has already been deployed in all four of Time Warner Cable's ROC's, where it will serve over 50 markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Cleveland.

During Time Warner's Q1 earnings call, Wednesday, the company's chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, provided an update on "TV Everywhere," its initiative to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on broadband and mobile platforms. "The idea is simple," Bewkes explained. "If you subscribe to a TV channel at home you can watch it for free on broadband from any provider, wherever and whenever you want, on-demand. With over 90% of US households already paying for television, programmers will be able to give consumers even more for their money," he continued.

Earlier this month, [itvt] reported that Atlanta-based interactive TV technologies and services company, itaas, 1) has been tapped by Cox Communications to provide support for developers creating, testing and launching ITV applications for the cable MSO's tru2way and ETV-EBIF implementation, via its flagship itaas istart Developer Program; and 2) has licensed an EBIF engine developed by Comcast-owned TVWorks and is now offering cable operators an EBIF deployment package that includes a license, deployment support, and maintenance services. Here are two other pieces of news from itaas that might be of interest to our readers:

Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable MSO in the US, announced Thursday that it has signed a carriage deal with Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks. In addition for calling for the Smithsonian Channel to be added to Time Warner Cable's line-up of HDTV linear channels, the new agreement calls for Smithsonian Networks to offer a range of its programming on the MSO's HD VOD platform; on its broadband service, Road Runner High Speed Online; and on its interactive TV services, Start Over and Look Back. "We're thrilled to be a part of the Time Warner Cable family," Smithsonian Networks general manager, Tom Hayden, said in a prepared statement.

Time Warner Cable launched a VOD service called Promotions on Demand, Monday, that it says will allow viewers to browse a range of long-format on-demand advertising (organized into such channels as "Find it on Demand" and "Automotive on Demand") and then, in less than a week, receive packages of coupons and other promotional material by mail for the product or service whose advertising they have just watched. While the MSO's press release announcing the new service states that the service allows viewers to "request" promotional offers, a report in the Orange County Register claims that the service automatically sends materials to viewers whenever they access a long-format on-demand commercial.

At the NCTA Cable Show in Washington, DC this week, ActiveVideo Networks (formerly ICTV)--a San Jose, Calif.-based company which offers a platform that it bills as intelligently streaming both traditional and Web-based content to digital set-top boxes and Web-connected CE devices and as combining the personalized, dynamic socially connected experience of the Web with the quality, immediacy and remote-control navigation that end-users expect from television (note: the company recently announced a deployment with Oceanic Time Warner--see [itvt] Issue xxx)--is showcasing for the first time third-party applications that were developed independently of its content-development team, using its Web-based content-creation tools.

Interactive TV technology provider, BIAP (note: the company's name is an acronym for Broadband Interactive Applications), has secured a five-year license agreement for its ETV User Agent with Time Warner Cable. The software will enable Time Warner Cable's digital set-top boxes to run EBIF applications created by the operator itself or by third parties such as TV networks. In addition to supporting third-party EBIF applications, the BIAP ETV User Agent will support the newest version of Time Warner Cable's MDN navigator.