Rovi announced a flurry of deals Tuesday, including its first ever with the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) and renewals with Canada’s Shaw Communications and CE giant Panasonic.
On the NCTC side, Rovi has granted a master agreement for the use of its guide for Digital Terminal Adapters, which are simple, one-way channel zappers that several operators are leaning on to facilitate their all-digital transitions. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but the deal gives NCTC’s membership of more than 900 independent operators the ability to license guides for both standard-definition and high-definition DTAs.
The Rovi DTA Guide supports baseline navigation capabilities, including channel tuning, parental controls, options for multiple languages, and on-screen On Now/On Next banners.
Rovi has already ported the guide to DTAs built by Evolution Digital, Arris and Pace, and is in talks with other suppliers, Rovi officials said, noting that this agreement marks its first with the NCTC.
“The cable industry is eager to complete their transition to an all-digital footprint,” said Corey McCarthy, the NCTC’s senior vice president of business development and CFO, in a statement. “We’re heralding the benefits of this change with additional capabilities across all of our devices – even on the basic DTA. Our agreement with Rovi will offer our members the ability to bring a navigation experience and show added value as they switch over their subscriber base to digital services.”
Elsewhere, Rovi said it has secured a “long term” renewal with Shaw Communications for the iGuide and licenses for the vendor’s interactive program guide patents. Under the deal, Shaw will continue to use iGuide in set-tops and have access to the Rovi patents “into the next decade.”
Rovi’s multi-year renewal with Panasonic gives the CE giant IPG-related licenses and Rovi Data (TV show information, images and editorial content) that extend coverage into Latin America and China and tie in Panasonics products such as TVs and recorders. The agreement also includes rights for Panasonic to use the HTML5-based G-Guide and Rovi’s HTML Guide.
