Washington— Cable companies and their suppliers last week took steps to make sure consumers could view the start of President Bush’s second term in an on-demand fashion.
Cablevision Systems Corp. said last Thursday that C-SPAN’s coverage of the presidential inauguration, as well as February’s State of the Union address, would be available to all of its iO: Interactive Optimum digital-cable subscribers via free VOD.
Both selections were included in the “On Stage” area of the iO “TV Encores” content category, Cablevision said.
“We are pleased, in cooperation with C-SPAN, to continue to make timely national political events available to our iO customers for unlimited viewing on demand and at no additional cost,” Cablevision senior vice president of product management Kristin Dolan said in a statement.
Cablevision joined VOD program supplier TVN Entertainment Corp., which said last Wednesday it would make C-SPAN’s coverage of the 55th presidential inauguration available to its VOD affiliates free of charge and exclusively via its “TVNow” rapid turnaround service.
TVN will use its “TVNow” turnaround service to make the video available “within hours” of the original cablecast.
TVN affiliates include Adelphia Communications Corp., Bresnan Communications, Buckeye CableSystem, Blue Ridge Communications, Cablevision, Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp., Insight Communications Co., and Mediacom Communications Corp.
The event kicked off at 11:30 a.m. ET last Thursday.
“Everyone has a busy schedule, and now those customers who may have missed the original cablecast can see the inauguration in its entirety, at their convenience, on-demand,” TVN vice president of Sales John Smith said in a statement
