Latest from Next TV in Wolzien

Video Call Center, MY Entertainment Partner on Development Deal

Mike Farrell — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 18:43:00 +0000

Video Call Center, the technology company created by television veteran and former Sanford Bernstein cable analyst Tom Wolzien, has struck a partnership with New York-based production company MY Entertainment to co-develop new programs.

Under the agreement MY Entertainment and the VCC will co-develop new show formats and series concepts utilizing the VCC’s patented video caller and social television technologies. The two companies will also further develop some existing programs within the VCC catalogue, which My Entertainment will pitch for sale to networks. The VCC has produced hundreds of workshop programs incorporating live video callers as examples of how its technology may be used, across a wide-range of genres including sports, celebrity gossip, news, politics, music and more.

MY Entertainment was formed by former advertising executive Michael Yudin and has produced series across a wide variety of genres for partners like Discovery, A&E, National Geographic, Lifetime, Spike, MTV, Comedy Central, Travel Channel, Investigation Discovery, Oxygen, Nickelodeon, Food Network, Animal Planet, Logo, IFC, TruTV and CMT.

“Every content provider has been trying to crack the code in developing social media based, formatted programs,” said MY Entertainment executive producer and chief operating officer Joe Townley in a statement. “We believe the VCC has developed the technology and the specialized production expertise to break through with that programming.”

The VCC will provide production expertise and serve as co-producer on any programs that go into development. MY Entertainment will act as executive producer and manage distribution rights on all shows that result from the partnership.

“We’re excited to expand the development of our workshop programs with a strong partner like My Entertainment which has the reach to present it to the right networks and distributors, domestically and internationally,” Video Call Center CEO Larry Thaler said in a statement. “My Entertainment understands the value and opportunity inherent in video caller TV to engage audiences, bridge the divide between online/social and TV, and to deliver entirely new forms of content.’

The Tea Passes 500K Viewers

Mike Farrell — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 16:28:00 +0000

The Tea, a daily online video call-in gossip show from Video Call Center and celebrity news website Wetpaint, has passed the 500,000 viewer milestone in its first month, according to its producers.

According to Video Call Center, the company created by former Sanford Bernstein media analyst Tom Wolzien to showcase his patented technology, more than 100,000 viewers tune into The Tea each week, and citing Wetpaint dwell time statistics, they stay tuned in for significantly longer than typical site visitors. The Tea, available every weekday at 3pm ET on Wetpaint at thetea.tv as well as Facebook Live, uses the Video Call Center’s video caller platform to create a program that enables celebrities, audiences, and hosts to engage in unscripted, unexpected conversation.

The VCC makes it possible to simultaneously connect multiple video callers from around the world—including viewers, celebrities and other guests—via their computers or smartphones and bring them all together in live, broadcast-caliber programs. The show averages more than a dozen on-air remote video callers/contributors per TV half-hour.

VCC puts the host in direct control of the flow of the show and eliminates the requirement for an expensive TV control room, making it possible for video callers to join live programs using any device and a more than a dozen IP video calling services, including Facebook Messenger, Skype, FaceTime and Gruveo (WebRTC).

“Shows like The Tea are using the Video Call Center to fundamentally change what is meant by audience engagement,” said VCC CEO Larry Thaler in a statement. “This is social TV in the truest sense, where the audience has the chance to be on camera and contributing to the conversation. We’re seeing content creators from across the spectrum of entertainment and news re-evaluate how they connect with their audiences thanks to the success of programs like The Tea.”

TalkCenter America Launches OTT Network

Mike Farrell — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 20:15:00 +0000

Television industry veteran Tom Wolzien’s TalkCenterAmerica will launch its own over-the-top television network on Jan. 20, with four new shows built from curated video callers in real time.

TalkCenterAmerica is the video programming platform backed by Wolzien’s patented Video Call Center, a technology that enables television shows and networks to conduct live video call-ins much like talk radio programs.

The four new shows are:

Rush 2 Crush (Rush2Crush.tv), a millennial focused dating series. New episodes live-stream on Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST;

OMGossip (OMGossip.tv), host Jeremy Hassell (VH1, MTV, E! News) leads the discussion with regular people from around the world, all talking gossip. New episodes live-stream Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. EST;

FanJamTV (FanJam.tv ) Connecting artists & fans across the globe. New episodes live-stream Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST;

The Milk (TheMilk.tv ), a new talk series aimed specifically at new mothers.

“This is a network for and by millennials, keyed to the subjects and using the digital tools essential to their lives,” Wolzien, founder and chairman of TCA’s parent The Video Call Center, LLC, said in a statement. “TalkCenterAmerica takes the desire of today’s millennial video audiences to be part of the story through instant social media commentary and enables them to engage in immediate live, video interaction with a show host, guests, and other video callers. Television/ Web video viewers are no longer just passive content consumers. They become the dynamic source and focus of our programming. They are no longer just following somebody else’s conversation.”

At launch, TCA Network’s four new programs will live-stream on the TCA website, the websites of each individual series, and be distributed over the network’s YouTube channel, accessible via most OTT devices.

TCA Network uses IP video technology and proprietary production/automation software created by parent The Video Call Center to connect with viewers who have video chat capable devices. Viewers with webcams, smart phones or tablets can make live video calls to TCA-enabled TV programs, where the production team can screen the callers and the talent can use special assistive automation to directly switch between the calls themselves.

Prior to launching its OTT network, TCA and The Video Call Center have produced more than 120 hours of interactive video call-in programming for broadcast television and the web, including 27 half and one-hour programs broadcast over the stations of TEGNA Media’s KUSA-TV Denver. These shows include the news special “Balance of Power: You Make the Call” following the Republican Presidential Primaries Debate in Colorado, “Theater Trial” a crime series chronicling the July 2015 trial of the Aurora, Colorado theater shooter, and the Denver Broncos pre-game series “Broncos Tonight: You Make the Call.” Program highlights of those broadcasts can be viewed on the VCC website.

Wolzien’s Video Call Center Expands IP Access

Mike Farrell — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 15:00:00 +0000

Former Wall Street media analyst Tom Wolzien’s Video Call Center, a content company with a patented technology that enables television shows and networks to conduct live video call-ins much like radio programs, has expanded the capabilities of its offering, introducing the Video App Choice, which allows producers to choose which IP Video is best for specific programs.

Wolzien received the patent for Video Call Center in 2014. In June he attracted broadcast TV station powerhouse Tegna as a “significant” investor in the company.

With Video App Choice, different callers can even use different IP video applications side by side within the same program. In its first full-system demonstration of the new approach, the VCC filled its eight caller system with callers using eight different IP video applications.

“Our customers told us they didn’t want to be locked into Skype or FaceTime or any other single IP video provider for good business reasons,” Wolzien said in a statement. “Therefore the VCC team designed and rewrote our 4TH generation Caller Acquisition Technology (CAT) to run on either PCs or MACs to handle any video application that doesn’t require proprietary hardware.”

Production manager and producer Tom Porpiglia has been running the tests using various IP video applications. Text overlays (lower thirds), and caller database and caller clearance information flow seamlessly between applications and call computers whether they are PCs or Macs. “In a show with dozens of callers, the Call Screeners can’t be worrying about whether a caller has the right video application, and with these advances we can now match the call computer’s software to the caller to get them on the air quickly and with the best possible quality,” he said in a statement.
IP Video applications that were part of the simultaneous demonstration included include Facebook, AOL video service, FaceTime® video calling, ooVoo, Skype, Viber, Google Hangouts and Gruveo. Additional successful tests have been done with conferencing services FUZE, WebEx, GoToMeeting, and Global Meeting, among others.

“Nobody in television likes being beholden to any one provider, particularly when IP video providers have many other and larger constituencies to serve,” Wolzien added in a statement. “Single web video providers can change their software functionality and terms without notice. Some have been trying to force producers to use specific equipment. We concluded along with our customers, that multiple IP video options are essential for the industry to maintain independence. That’s why The Video Call Center created this new Video App Choice approach.”