Comcast Media Center Offers "C3 VOD" Service Incorporating Nielsen TV Ratings

Online, July 26, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Denver, Colo, June 9, 2009 - The Comcast Media Center's (CMC) national video on demand (VOD) platform, which reaches over 90 percent of the country's top cable MSOs and more than 30 million VOD-enabled homes, now offers a "C3 VOD" service for delivering television programming that can be counted in time-shifted measurement using The Nielsen Company's C3 commercial ratings. C3 ratings measure the average commercial minutes in programs that were viewed live and time-shifted through video on demand or DVR playback in the three days following a linear broadcast. The CMC also announced that three cable television networks are already planning to use the service, including AMC.

"Buyers and sellers of television advertising need clear information on how consumers' watch time-shifted television. Nielsen has measured VOD since 2006, and we're thrilled that Comcast Media Center has joined the effort to provide the media and advertising community with what it requires," said Scott L Brown, Senior Vice President of Media Product Leadership, for The Nielsen Company.

The CMC's C3 VOD service uses its rapid-turn capabilities to acquire linear TV programs during their original broadcast, provide real-time encoding of the program, including the original advertising, and incorporate the profiles for C3 commercial ratings provided by The Nielsen Company. The VOD-encoded programs are delivered to local cable systems for time-shifted viewing within hours of the original broadcast.

Powering the CMC's rapid-turn capabilities for on demand programming is its Content Distribution Operations Center, or "CDOC" ingest service. CDOC features full national fiber and satellite arc capabilities and managed over 5,000 live event feeds in 2008, including direct feeds from linear television networks that used its rapid turn-around service for time-shifted VOD programming.

The CMC also announced that Comcast Spotlight, recognizing the growing usage of time shifting technologies and the need for programmers and advertisers to get accurate audience estimates, will also offer a suite of cross platform marketing opportunities to television programmers wanting to drive awareness and viewing of content offered in VOD. These promotional opportunities include banner ads on Comcast's iGuide, the Comcast/Macrovision interactive program guide. Banner ads on i-Guide provide immediate access to linear and VOD programming by letting viewers telescope directly to linear programs or VOD selections with a click of their remote controls. In addition, "tune-in" spots will be available on linear channels promoting awareness of the programs and helping to drive further VOD viewership.

"As more and more consumers shift their viewing it is important for us and for our advertising clients to know who they reached and when," said Chip Meehan, Vice President of Advanced Advertising Sales for Comcast Spotlight. "Working with CMC and with Nielsen to quickly watermark assets we hope to make that possible."

Nielsen's C3 TV rating measures the average commercial minutes in a program that was viewed live and time-shifted through video on demand or DVR playback in the three days following a linear broadcast. Commercial C3 ratings allow television networks to monetize the VOD audience by aggregating it with linear viewing in a metric known to advertisers. The CMC will replace original advertising containing Nielsen profile data at the discretion of participating television programming networks and their cable system affiliates.

"Nielsen's affirmation of our ability to help support its on-demand audience measurement systems is a tremendous benefit for our content services customers and cable MSO affiliates," stated Gary Traver, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for the Comcast Media Center. "By demonstrating the value of advertising that accompanies VOD programming, television networks and other content providers can measure the value of their investment in on demand television programming. Moreover, these audience measurement tools will complement the ability of ETV applications and promotional capabilities, including the services that Comcast Spotlight is providing, to help drive additional audience demand for linear shows that are also available in local VOD libraries."

About the CMC's National VOD Content Distribution Platform:
The CMC currently delivers over 9,000 VOD assets from more than 275 content services providers per month. Launched in 2003, the CMC's VOD platform features among the fastest turnaround times for VOD content, allowing affiliates to more easily schedule time sensitive programming.

Earlier this spring, the CMC launched Express Lane™, a new service for video on demand (VOD) content providers featuring automated workflows and remote management capabilities. In addition to accelerating the delivery of VOD content often to near real time, Express Lane service helps VOD content providers to direct the delivery of individual VOD assets to specific cable system headends, often increasing flexibility to produce and deliver content to a particular marketplace. It also adds the functionality to post VOD programming to a "bull pen" where content providers can preview the video programming and select the cable systems that should receive a particular VOD asset.

The CMC has also expanded its VOD capabilities to support MPEG 4 as well as MPEG 2 encoding and transport to cable systems nationwide. The reliable, secure and platform-independent VOD service can capture content in nearly any format, from almost anywhere, and provide encoding with very high quality from 1 Mbps to 50 Mbps. The CMC can also help aggregate programming packages from a range of partners; provide in-house meta-data creation and validation that can be can customized to meet various headend configurations, and deliver content via satellite and Internet delivery platforms.

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