VOD Health Service Adds Cox, Bresnan

[cablewithaview]

By Kent Gibbons 1/30/2007 5:50:00 PM
Digg This | add to Del.icio.us |

HealthiNation, a health-related video provider, said Tuesday that its ad-supported on-demand content was added to Cox Communications and Bresnan Communications digital-cable systems.

HealthiNation’s service -- which debuted on Insight Communications cable systems last June -- is now available on digital cable in 22 states, having added 15 markets where Cox offers its FreeZone on-demand service and four mountain states where Bresnan operates, the company said.

CEO Raj Amin -- a veteran of cable-technology firms Scientific Atlanta and N2 Broadband -- said the business model equally embraces video-on-demand and broadband video.

The health category “is nonlinear by nature,” well-suited to consumers searching for videos about a particular subject, he added. It’s a top Internet search category, too, and it attracts advertising from large pharmaceutical companies, food and dietary products and local health institutions, he said.

HealthiNation produces its own videos, reviewed by medical advisers, and it uses computer-generated graphics and “high-quality 3-D bio animation” to help tell stories and deliver information. They vary in length from 8-15 minutes, with advertising pods within the program, Amin said.

He added that on Insight systems, viewers have typically watched 70% of the HealthiNation titles offered, “which is much higher than the industry average for free content.” Cable would be well served to expand health-information video content as a way to help develop on-demand systems in competition with broadband-video sites, he said.

"HealthiNation's programs are a great fit for video-on-demand, providing valuable information to our customers any time they choose," David Porter, vice president of marketing and new media for Cox Media, said in a news release. "It also gives health advertisers a highly targeted opportunity to connect with viewers as part of their information-gathering experience.”

"Bresnan customers already enjoy state-of-the-art video, data and voice services throughout the Rocky Mountain region, and adding HealthiNation to our increasingly robust VOD offerings will be a great resource for our growing number of video subscribers." Jim Gemmill, Bresnan's VP of operations, said in another release.


VOD Health Service Adds Cox, Bresnan - 1/30/2007 5:50:00 PM - Multichannel News