BBC Achieves Significant Interactive TV Audiences With OpenTV; 4.5 Million Tennis and Golf Fans Experience OpenTV Interactive TV Service.Business Editors LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 2001 Armchair sports fans get into the action! The BBC BBC in full British Broadcasting Corp. Publicly financed broadcasting system in Britain. A private company at its founding in 1922, it was replaced by a public corporation under royal charter in 1927. announced a total of 4.5 million sports fans experienced interactive coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships or the British Open golf tournament through the BSkyB/Sky Digital service deployed on OpenTV's (Nasdaq:OPTV) (Euronext Amsterdam:OPTV) interactive platform. As previously announced, one million digital satellite viewers accessed the BBC's Wimbledon interactive service on the very first day of the Championships. An average of 0.9 million viewers used the service every day during this event resulting in a cumulative audience of 4.2 million viewers. Coverage of the British Open Golf tournament was a similar success with around 50 percent of the BSkyB audience accessing interactive services. A total of 1.2 million individual viewers accessed interactive services during the four day event, with an audience of around half a million each day. Scott Gronmark, Head of Interactive TV, BBC New Media said, "The reaction has been nothing short of sensational. We look forward to rolling out further interactive services in the near future." James Ackerman, OpenTV's CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. , said, "It's fantastic to see how interactive TV services can deepen the viewing experience offered by one of the world's best known broadcasters. The very strong consumer results achieved by BSkyB and the BBC clearly indicate that iTV applications have raised the bar for premium sports broadcasting. With over 44 broadcast networks using, or having selected, OpenTV technology world-wide, we expect that many more viewers will see innovative interactive TV programmes in the future." The BBC's interactive Wimbledon and British Open coverage offered viewers the ability to choose what they wanted to watch from a selection of five video streams. Both services also offered some statistics and player information. The market for BBC's interactive broadcast services extends to the 5.5 million BSkyB viewers with a Sky Digital set-top box The cable TV box that sits on "top" of the TV "set," although it is often located several feet away in an equipment rack. The set-top box descrambles the premium channels and provides a tuner for the higher cable numbers that very old TVs did not support. . (Photography is available to be emailed on request) About OpenTV OpenTV is the world's leading interactive television and media solutions company. OpenTV builds a complete software and infrastructure platform that enables digital interactive television and brings on-demand content to other digital communications Transmitting text, voice and video in binary form. See communications. devices. OpenTV solutions are crafted to meet the needs of digital communications networks and include operating middleware Software that functions as a conversion or translation layer. It is also a consolidator and integrator. Custom-programmed middleware solutions have been developed for decades to enable one application to communicate with another that either runs on a different platform or comes from a , content applications, content creation tools, professional services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. expertise, and strategic consulting. At present, OpenTV software has been shipped with or installed in more than 16 million digital set-top boxes worldwide and has been selected by 44 digital cable, satellite and terrestrial communications networks The transmission channels interconnecting all client and server stations as well as all supporting hardware and software. in over 50 countries, including BSkyB in the United Kingdom; TPS (1) (Transactions Per Second) The number of transactions processed within one second. TPS is a better rating for the performance of hardware and software than the common MHz and GHz rating of the computer. and Noos in France; PrimaCom in Germany; Via Digital in Spain; Stream in Italy; DIRECTV(TM) Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control ; and EchoStar's DISH Network See DBS. and USA Media Group in the U.S. In addition, 33 digital set-top box manufacturers have licensed OpenTV's software to date, and more than 1,100 developers have joined the Company's OpenAdvantage developer program. Worldwide headquarters for OpenTV is located in Mountain View, Calif. Information on OpenTV is available at www.opentv.com. This news release contains forward-looking statements forward-looking statement A projected financial statement based on management expectations. A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections. that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated herein, including statements regarding the BBC's plans to provide future interactive services. Actual results can differ materially. Risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, whether and to what extent the BBC identifies further sporting event coverage to be enhanced with OpenTV technology, whether demand for interactive television services will continue, whether other network operators will develop similar interactive services, the rate at which the interactive television market will continue to expand, the timely identification and development of new products and services, customer acceptance of those products and services and the pricing thereof, the impact of technological constraints and changes in technology, and other risk factors detailed in the documents filed from time to time by OpenTV Corp. with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those risk factors detailed in Item 3.D of OpenTV Corp.'s Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 18, 2001. OpenTV undertakes no obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. (c)2001 OpenTV, Inc. All rights reserved. OpenTV, OpenAuthor, OpenTV Runtime, OpenStreamer, and the OpenTV logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of OpenTV, Inc. in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All OpenTV products and services may not be available in all geographic areas. |
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