PHILADELPHIA – Comcast, the largest cable company in North America, announced this week that more than one billion programs have been viewed over the company’s video on demand system so far this year.
With this announcement, the company is well ahead of its expectations that a billion VOD programs would be viewed in 2005 alone.
Comcast’s release says movies, music, sports and children’s programming are the most popular categories. This is good news for Corus Entertainment, too, since that company exclusively offers over 200 hours of kids programming to the big MSO for on demand viewing, as reported by www.cartt.ca earlier this summer.
In 2004, Comcast customers viewed 567 million video on demand programs. The company’s on demand views are IP streams of video content that are delivered to customers’ television sets via Comcast’s next-generation fiber network. Launched in late 2002 in Philadelphia, On Demand is now available in all of the company’s major markets.
"One billion views in less than 10 months proves that On Demand is transforming the way people watch TV," said Page Thompson, vice-president and general manager of Comcast On Demand. "We have added thousands of hours of programs in less than three years and will continue to dramatically expand our On Demand lineup in the months ahead to give our customers even more value."
Comcast offers a growing library of more than 3,800 programs available any time customers want to watch them – with the ability to fast forward, rewind and pause selections. Nearly 95% of On Demand programs are available at no additional charge.
A "view" begins when a customer selects a program from the On Demand menu and ends when it is deleted from the saved program file. Pauses, rewinds or fast-forwards and restarts are considered part of the original "view."
In 2005, Comcast added hundreds of hours of free On Demand programs, including movies and TV shows from the Sony Pictures library; Hispanic programming from leading networks; music videos; and a more robust kids’ programming lineup under the PBS Kids Sprout name. For sports fans, On Demand now offers the second season of NFL Network On Demand’s NFL Replay — featuring 10-15 minute highlights of every NFL game the day after they’re played — along with NHL weekly highlights, an around-the-league show called "Facing Off" and an Icebreakers category to help fans get caught up on NHL rule changes and an NBA Season Preview beginning October 20.
In Comcast’s most mature VOD markets, more than 75% of digital cable customers have used the service in the previous 90 days, with more recently launched markets showing similar usage trends. On average, homes with On Demand are using the service more than 20 times per month.
