(New York, NY) –Rainbow Media's President and CEO, Josh Sapan, in a presentation at the Kagan Video-On-Demand Summit this morning highlighted his vision for television content in an on-demand world. Mr. Sapan's presentation offered leading industry executives from the programming, technology and distributor sectors his perspective on the VOD business climate, emerging trends in the industry and the key issues confronting the future of on-demand television. He also touched on the initial consumer response from Rainbow Media's own video-on-demand service, Mag Rack.
Last year, Mr. Sapan led the launch of Rainbow's Mag Rack, the latest innovation in VOD programming, providing viewers with the nation's first and only service that delivers original content that is designed and produced exclusively for VOD. Mag Rack explores, in-depth, a wide range of topics that are unavailable elsewhere on television and continues Rainbow's long-held vision of personalized and targeted television programming.
Highlights of his presentation include the following comments:
- "Cable TV needs to develop on-demand content that consumers find meaningful. Meaningful enough to counter the widespread consumer perception that satellite and cable are interchangeable, and meaningful enough to influence a current annual digital churn rate of between 35 percent and 75 percent per year."
- "Cable TV should, of course, offer a rich array of VOD and SVOD product from the movie studios, cable channels and broadcast. But it should not settle for a VOD offering that is essentially redundant to what a PVR can achieve already."
- "We (Rainbow Media) launched the service (Mag Rack) on September 28 with 10 magazines, now we have 22, we will have 25 next month and we will be at 40 by year end. Early utilization numbers are strong…Our qualitative research is confirming what we had hoped – that people with a particular interest or enthusiasm from Shakespeare to vegetarianism to fashion find a high value in the service because it speaks to their particular interest…"
To schedule time to speak to Mr. Sapan or to learn more about Mag Rack, members of the media may call Matthew Frankel at Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc. at (516) 803-5141.
About Rainbow Media
Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc. is a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC) and NBC. Rainbow manages American Movie Classics, WE: Women's Entertainment, Bravo, The Independent Film Channel, MuchMusic USA, Mag Rack, Rainbow Sports Networks, News 12 Networks, and MetroChannels as well as the Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation and Rainbow Network Communications. In addition, Rainbow is a fifty-percent partner in Fox Sports Net. Rainbow's five national networks, Fox Sports Net and Mag Rack are the assets included in Cablevision's Rainbow Media Group tracking stock (NYSE:RMG). MGM (NYSE:MGM) owns a 20% stake in four of Rainbow's national networks – AMC, Bravo, IFC, and WE: Women's Entertainment.