OpenTV, MIH together again

By Susan Rush
From The September 10, 2002 Edition Of CED Broadband Direct

OpenTV has inked a multi-platform licensing agreement with its former owner MIH Limited. The deal has an up-front value of roughly $4 million.

As part of the multi-year deal, MIH will deploy OpenTV's iTV technology and bundled content on its pay television platforms. Content to be supplied by OpenTV includes chat, news, sports, weather, horoscopes and the PlayJam games and entertainment channel --OpenTV subsidiary Static2358 operates PlayJam.

The agreement also encompasses OpenTV Advertise, OpenTV Publisher and OpenTV Account. OpenTV Advertise manages, schedules and broadcasts banner ads to all iTV applications, and produces a variety of advertising tracking report. OpenTV Account is a server-based customer relationship management solution to support transactional iTV services such as t-commerce, direct response TV and self-provisioning.

South African network operator MCA (MultiChoice Africa) is expected to be the first MIH system to deploy the OpenTV services.

OpenTV expects to receive an up-front payment of more than $4 million. The payment will be recognized as recurring revenue over a five-year period, according to OpenTV.

In May, MIH sold its controlling interest into the interactive TV technology provider to Liberty Media Corp. for $185 million in cash and shares. MIH gave up its interest in OpenTV to focus on its core business, subscriber management. Liberty Media now owns 46 percent of OpenTV, and has a voting interest of roughly 89 percent.

OpenTV enjoys the largest global interactive television footprint in the world with more than 27 million homes using its patent technology.