DigiDev Makes Big Impression at MIPCOM

Nov. 6, 2012 - PRLog -- The Digital Development Group Corp  (“DigiDev”), a hybrid content licensing and technology company offering a wide array of niche content for television and other Internet-connected devices, recently attended the world’s largest entertainment content trade show, MIPCOM, to present its innovative platform to content producers around the world.

With over 1,700 exhibiting companies and over 4,400 buyers and commissioners, including companies like Netflix Inc.  and Virgin Media , the MIPCOM conference is held twice per year to enable content buyers from around the world to visit the entire content value chain and ultimately acquire new programming.

Introducing Over-The-Top

Over-the-top (“OTT”) technology enables consumers to view content across numerous platforms leveraging the Internet, ranging from tablet PCs to gaming consoles. Capitalizing on the fact that many traditional TV subscribers are starting to watch their favorite shows online, the industry is expected to grow to more than $32 billion by 2016, according to IMS Research.

Despite this enormous growth, OTT technologies remain relatively undiscovered among the content producers at MIPCOM. Many companies have heard of the term, but few have actually signed digital distribution deals, aside from large content producers working with companies like Netflix and Hulu.com to distribute their already-popular content.

But just in these cases, Hulu.com has seen its service grow some 60% between 2010 and 2011, with more than 38 million people having used its service at least once. And Netflix has more than 20 million subscribers worldwide that have watched more than 2 billion hours of old TV shows and movies during the final three months of last year alone.

The Right Time to Buy is Now

Since the concept of OTT is still relatively new, the cost of acquiring content is affordable for companies like DigiDev and lucrative for publishers with content libraries. The company can help these publishers create new paths to monetization and extend their pay window by delivering existing content to new audiences through multiple channels online. The firm’s management team had experienced the same type of trends when building Image Entertainment, which was one of the original aggregators of content in the DVD business that eventually grew to over $120 million in revenues per year.

DigiDev is diligently working with content owners to acquire content by creating mutually beneficial financial arrangements. By targeting more niche content than Netflix or Hulu, the company aims to amass a large and exclusive library of content rather than simply becoming another licensee of already popular content and trying to compete with everyone else.

The company’s unique platform also features innovative new advertising technologies and other features designed to attract publishers, including:

The ability to publish to multiple sources (OTT) including smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TVs, gaming consoles, and other Internet enabled devices.

Multiple monetization methods including pay-per-view, subscriptions, video ads in any format, interactive product placement and much more.

An agnostic billing platform that ties into any third party solution, including merchant accounts, billing systems, accounting systems and more.

Detailed analytics covering the video content, social media and financial metrics.

Many other unique features including digital rights management (DRM), SMS competitions and donations, and click-to-buy in-video product placements.

Experienced Management

In the end, the success of any company depends on management’s execution of its business strategy. DigiDev has a very experienced management team at the helm, beginning with CEO Martin W. Greenwald. Mr. Greenwald is well known in the industry for overseeing Image Entertainment’s rise from $1 million in revenues to over $120 million in revenues per year.

Mr. Greenwald is joined by President Joe Q. Bretz, who has worked at various Silicon Valley media startups during the dot-com boom in the 90’s and managed a private-equity fund focused on interactive new media platforms. These past endeavors have given him insight into the industry’s next stages, as well as strong financial acumen.