News Broadcasting
OpenTV previews its vision for the future at IBC 2006
MUMBAI: OpenTV, which provides enabling technologies for advanced digital television services, will showcase its latest technologies under the banner of “television is changing … open it up!” at the IBC show in Amsterdam.
The event takes place from 8-12 September 2006.
The theme, grounded by the premise that today’s television viewers are demanding greater choice, flexibility, and access, encompasses the entire range of OpenTV’s products on display. By ‘opening up’ the technologies that serve as a foundation for set-top boxes and digital television, OpenTV says that it is taking a leadership position by enabling the adoption of flexible business models and compelling viewer experiences in the television industry.
OpenTV chairman and CEO James A. (Jim) Chiddix says, “Today, the central technologies for building and maintaining social networks around the world are the phone and the internet.
“OpenTV believes that TV is next, and that the way to survive in this changing world is to embrace explore, and enable that change. When we say we are ‘opening up’ television, we are extending our tradition of pioneering middleware and related solutions to new content sources, new navigation models, new forms of television advertising, and new experiences in participation with television.”
Featured products at IBC will include solutions for advanced digital
television; advanced advertising; and participation television.
— OpenTV Vision: Supporting its theme for IBC, OpenTV will debut a supermodal, zoomable user interface (ZUI) that fundamentally changes the way viewers navigate and make viewing choices from the massive amounts of available content, by providing navigation tools that create relevance and match interests.
— Advanced Digital Television:– OpenTV will showcase a number of live HDTV services from OpenTV customers as well as a wide array of HD set-top boxes from ADB, Pace, Philips, Scientific Atlanta, and Thomson.
— OpenTV will demonstrate the power of its popular Core2/PVR2
set-top software through the demonstration of a HD guide
developed by Nagravision. The guide features key elements such
as time-shifting, scheduling, and series linking, as well as
push VOD.
— OpenTV will demonstrate IPTV, highlighting a solution for
hybrid IPTV deployments by cable and satellite operators.
— OpenTV Core2/PVR2 supports multiple application execution
environments including HTML and Flash(R). OpenTV will showcase
its Flash solution, based on the award-winning MachBlue(TM)
from Bluestreak Network, supporting rapid authoring of enhanced
programming using standard Adobe(R) Flash authoring tools.
OpenTV will also demonstrate its industry -leading HTML
solution with home networking applications.
— OpenTV has also integrated technologies with ICTV(TM) and will
be demonstrating a personalized mosaic that delivers
alternative navigation and Internet-type programming and
advertising capabilities to OpenTV-enabled set-top boxes.
As far as advanced advertising:solutions are concerned the company will conduct demonstrations that will feature an end-to-end production system for enhanced advertising that engages audiences by enabling compelling, interactive advertising applications to be created, validated, scheduled, and launched more quickly and less
expensively.
— Also shown will be OpenTV’s advertising sales and inventory
management solutions with a demonstration of OpenTV’s ad
decision engine for dynamic insertion of targetted ads.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
