ODG’s expansion and content management activities in the PPV, VOD, SVOD and IPTV markets continued its rapid growth throughout 2008.
Key Highlights included:
- November; ODG enters the mobile video market with the acquisition of Mobix Interactive. Mobix is a leading provider of mobile video and TV services to the growing European, Middle East and African (EMEA) market. Mobix provides hosted mobile media services to some of the region’s largest carriers, including O2 and 3 in the U.K. and Vodacom in South Africa. Using its proprietary mobile video and TV platform, Adrenalin, and core media services, Mobix enables the deployment of premium and ad-enabled mobile video and TV services.
- November; Turkey’s largest ISP, TTNet, appoints ODG to manage On-Demand TV service. TTNET, Turkey’s largest ISP was the 13th largest ISP** in the world in terms total subscribers as of 2007 year-end and reached 4.9 million subscribers as of first half 2008. The roll out of IPTV services to its customer base represents a key expansion to its service offer.
- October; First European VOD advertising trial launches on Virgin Media’s On Demand TV platform. Utilising SeaChange International’s Ad Pulse automation advertising insertion and content managed by ODG, the trial represents the first ever dynamic advertising trial and includes leading brands including Kellogg’s, John Lewis and Royal Mail, with ads broadcast around selected on-demand programs from Virgin Media TV, Channel 4 and Warner TV.
- October; On Demand Deutschland (ODD) the joint venture between ODG and Tele Munchen Gruppe (TMG), agreed a multi-year licensing agreement with Warner Bros. Television Distribution to launch Warner TV , a new subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD) branded service that will provide theatrical motion pictures and TV content from Warner Bros. to viewers in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. ODD has concluded a content management deal to launch the service via aonTV, the digital TV service of Telekom Austria which went live in October.
- September; the Virgin Media VOD service in the UK breaks 50 million views in the month for the first time. The Virgin Media TV VOD service, for which ODG is the content management partner, has continued it’s fast growth in terms of the range of TV, comedy, drama, factual, kids, movies and music video programming offered. Since the Virgin re-branding from February 2007 the service has continued to deliver record breaking viewing levels into the second half of 2008.
- July ODG was appointed by Greece’s largest Telco, the Helenic Telecommunication Organisation S.A. (OTE), to provide an outsourced video on demand (VOD) service. ODG will be handling the content acquisition, content management and programming as well as assisting OTE in the marketing of the service to maximise the uptake and overall viewing and buy rates. OTE has 5 million fixed lines and over 700,000 broadband customers.
- April 2008 saw the start of a major push from ODG to license their VZ VOD management system. VZ’s content management suite can provide operators with a total speed to market solution for their content and product management and MIS and billing reporting needs.
- This coincides with launch of the latest version of VZ. Over the last year the software development team have completely re-engineered the platform to improve performance, flexibility and introduce a number of features including:
- Multiple language support
- Multiple platform metadata formats
- Automated metadata import facilities
- VOD service planning and scheduling
- Enhanced royalty management
- Enhance reporting capabilities
- March; On Demand Deutschland (ODD), the joint venture of ODG and Tele München Gruppe (TMG), reached its first anniversary. ODD continues to make strong progress developing its movie Pay Per View services, Select Kino, available to subscribers of Kabel Deutschland (KDG), Germany’s largest cable networks, and Kino auf Abruf, available to subscribers of Unity Media, Germany’s second largest cable network, as well as the new VOD service with Telkom Austria.
- February; Telekom’s Austria’s IPTV aonTV service for which ODG started to supply the VOD content acquisition, management, programming and on-screen production services in February 2008, continued to make strong progress throughout the second half of 2008 with the addition of more top quality premium content and is already showing substantially increased viewing levels.
- January; Having founded the FilmFlex VOD movie service with Sony Pictures Television International and Walt Disney Television International, ODG announced, in January 2008, the sale of their stake back to the other partners. ODG continue to supply content management and onscreen promotion services to FilmFlex, which has become the biggest VOD TV movie service in the world outside of the USA and which continues to feature strongly on the Virgin Media TV VOD service platform.
