BlackArrow Unveils New Product Enhancements to Unlock the Value of VOD Advertising

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- BlackArrow, a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New Television platforms, today announced a set of sophisticated enhancements to the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System that unlock the value of advertising within video-on-demand (VOD). These capabilities, which include robust, dynamic mid-roll functionality, as well as application programming interfaces (APIs) that support integrated workflows with third-party advertising systems, offer significant new revenue opportunities for local and national advertising sales teams and operational efficiencies for operators and programmers alike.

Dynamic mid-roll ad insertion expands the market opportunity for VOD advertising by enabling inventory owners to develop flexible new advertising business models that support both existing time-shifted television currencies such as Nielsen's C3, as well as new ad packaging strategies that contemplate multiple broadcast windows or other targeting criteria. Through the use of standard broadcast metadata, the BlackArrow solution inserts advertising during time- and context-specific points in any program and enables programmers to replace – or skip altogether – any ads bound to an original static VOD asset.

These new capabilities, coupled with the existing ad policy functionality in the BlackArrow system, also provide the associated benefit of single pitch. Programmers will now be able to pitch a program asset once and leverage the same asset for static or dynamic VOD distribution, along with the corresponding flexibility to swap-out ad copy, ad creative, ad loads and other parameters without incurring the incremental costs of re-encoding and redistributing assets.

In addition, the new release includes a series of APIs that facilitate the flow of VOD orders from existing, third-party linear or online ad systems into the BlackArrow System for execution. This affords BlackArrow clients with extensive choice and flexibility in the design of their advertising workflows, and simplifies operations by leveraging the systems and processes already in place without retooling.

"VOD is more than a viewing platform, it is a form of advanced television that can support a much richer and more complex advertising environment," said Chris Hock, senior vice president, product management for BlackArrow. "The latest version of the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System is a feature-rich release that offers market-driving advanced advertising capabilities — combining the flexibility and monetization of TV-based advertising with the efficiencies and scale of digital distribution."

New feature highlights summary:

• New dynamic mid-roll capabilities for VOD content significantly increases revenue opportunities
• Automated control over ad-load and trick-mode policies enable new, broadcast-date aware business models
• Innovative single-pitch asset-handling reduces costs and operational complexities by leveraging a single asset across multiple broadcast windows and operators
• Support for existing linear and online ad systems via APIs now streamlines VOD advertising workflows

About The BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System

The BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System is designed specifically for the technological complexities and business issues within on-demand television advertising environments. The BlackArrow Sales Suite enables ad sales organizations to define, manage and monetize multiplatform, multioperator advertising campaigns to reach audiences who increasingly consume time-shifted programming on their televisions, computers, mobile and handheld devices. For content distributors, the BlackArrow Decision Suite offers powerful ad decisioning and proven system interoperability to streamline deployment in complex cable and distribution environments.

About BlackArrow, Inc.

BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New Television platforms. The company's multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures (NYSE: MOT), NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

BlackArrow is a trademark of BlackArrow, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

SOURCE BlackArrow

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