Vubiquity, Inc. is a
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, w ...
-based provider of content monetization, distribution and processing technology used by entertainment and media companies. The company ensures its client's video content is properly formatted, licensed and tracked when shown on different media outlets, such as streaming services.
In January 2018, it was announced that the company was being acquired by
Chesterfield, Missouri
Chesterfield is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is a western suburb of St. Louis. As of the 2020 census, the population was 49,999, . The broader valley of Chesterfield was originally referred to as "Gumbo Flats", derived ...
-based business software provider
Amdocs
Amdocs ( he, אמדוקס) is a multinational corporation that was founded in Israel and currently headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri, with support and development centers located worldwide. The company specializes in software and services ...
.
History
Launch as TVN Entertainment Corporation
The company was founded in 1988 as Touchtone Video Network, Inc. (later renamed TVN Entertainment Corporation), a distributor of pay-per-view movies via
C-band satellite
The C band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies ranging from 4.0 to 8.0 gigahertz (GHz). However, the U.S. ...
aimed primarily at rural households. The pay-per-view movies were offered via 10 channels, which TVN branded as "theaters," akin to a movie theater. Investors in TVN Entertainment's launch included
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
and
MCA, Inc., which provided titles for TVN to distribute via its pay-per-view channels.
At the time of its launch in January 1991, customers paid a one-time fee of $19.99 to "hook in" to TVN's programming via a special adapter that plugged in to a conventional C-band satellite receiver. Movies were offered to customers for $3.99 each.
In 1994, TVN signed a deal with the National Football League to offer some regular season games on eight of its 10 pay-per-view channels each Sunday. At the time, the games were produced by NBC and Fox on a regional basis for local broadcast affiliates; the NFL's deal with TVN was one of the earliest coast-to-coast distribution deals via satellite and was a precursor to
DirecTV
DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It ...
's
NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The ideal customer o ...
.
In the late 1990s, TVN saw a decline in its consumer pay-per-view products as upstarts
Dish Network
DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...
,
PrimeStar
PrimeStar was a U.S. direct broadcast satellite broadcasting company formed in 1991 by a consortium of cable television system operators ( TCI Satellite Entertainment Group, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Comcast and MediaOne) and GE Ame ...
and DirecTV began offering DBS television service.
Transformation into VOD
In early 2000, TV executive Jim Riley was brought in to reshape the business and with colleague Doug Sylvester began restructuring over $140MM in debt, while simultaneously transforming the business into the first national on-demand service. Quickly surpassing early VOD entrants including Sony's Intertainer and
In Demand
In Demand (stylized as iN DEMAND) is an American cable television service which provides video on demand services, including pay-per-view. Comcast, Cox Communications, and Charter Communications (with former independent companies Time Warner ...
, TVN supplied both the tech stack as well as a suite of content to enable the launch of VOD into local servers within the head ends of Cable TV operators across North America. Using forward path satellite delivery and return path via high speed connections, TVN was the first company to create a multicast solution allowing a single (movie, show) video file to be packaged (along with metadata, artwork and trailer) transmitted full CONUS to servers around the country, ushering in a new era in on demand services for Americans. Striking deals with every major Hollywood Studio, Pay TV Network and most Major Sports leagues, TVN caught the attention of Comcast's Steve Burke who in 2005 hired the firm to create the first "free on demand" solution with the major Cable TV networks, enabling live-to-VOD and catch up television, quickly growing to thousands of hours monthly of the best in TV content on demand. Within a few years, TVN turned had around a failing business into the largest VOD licensing and service provider in the TV industry. TVN's many on demand firsts included, a national network of destination feeders attached to VOD servers, TCP/IP asset package processing, Digital Ad insertion (DAI) with FFD, UFC and WWE on demand, VOD Olympics coverage, and more. When sold to Avail Media in 2009, the business had transformed its balance sheet from $140MM in debt to $26MM EBITDA, initiated the start of nationalized VOD and made "Metadata" cool.
Merger with Avail Media and subsequent re-brand to Vubiquity
In 2009, Avail Media (an
IPTV
Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...
provider) and TVN merged to create Avail-TVN. In May 2010, the company announced that it would add support for
3D television
3D television (3DTV) is television that conveys depth perception to the viewer by employing techniques such as stereoscopic display, multi-view display, 2D-plus-depth, or any other form of 3D display. Most modern 3D television sets use an ...
to its roster of services. The company’s 3D on-demand offering works with operators' existing infrastructure and will work with existing set-top boxes after minor software updates.
In September 2010, Avail-TVN was listed as part of the ''
Inc.'' 500/5000. The company ranked number 1833 overall, and number 24 among media companies. In November 2012, Avail-TVN placed 6th on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 and earned the top spot among media and entertainment companies. The company earned its place in the top 10 with 38,479 percent growth from 2007 to 2011.
In May 2012, Avail-TVN announced that it had raised $100 million of financing, led by the
Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...
, to fund global expansion and domestic service development, and had acquired UK-based
On Demand Group
OnDemand is a brand name for a video-on-demand, London-based company owned by the On Demand Group, who provide mobile video services such as pay-per-view to over 25 million subscribers. Their product is sold through middleware to smart TV compa ...
, which continued to operate under its own name.
In March 2013, Avail-TVN and
On Demand Group
OnDemand is a brand name for a video-on-demand, London-based company owned by the On Demand Group, who provide mobile video services such as pay-per-view to over 25 million subscribers. Their product is sold through middleware to smart TV compa ...
re-branded as a single entity, Vubiquity.
In January 2018, Chesterfield, Missouri-based business software provider Amdocs announced it was acquiring Vubiquity, for $224 million.
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References
External links
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{{U.S. premium television services
Mass media companies of the United States
2009 establishments in California
Amdocs