Canoe Ventures Taps BlackArrow on VOD
By | May 24, 2013
Canoe Ventures has licensed from BlackArrow a toolset for managing dynamic ad insertion around VOD. Dubbed “BlackArrow Affiliate,” the tech coordinates, streamlines and interoperates VOD DAI across multiple systems. The combination of BlackArrow’s tech with Canoe’s existing software should make VOD DAI available to 28 million households in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and each of the top 10 DMAs—and 26 of the top 30 DMAs. Ops can schedule ad campaigns by criteria including day of week, time of day, and by program or series with reporting coming back on a daily bas
“As consumer behavior continues to shift towards on demand experiences, Canoe and many in the industry realize the significant opportunity for dynamic ad insertion on VOD,” said Joel Hassell, CEO of Canoe. “We believe that the combination of proven technologies, software and services that BlackArrow and Canoe bring to the table will significantly enhance on-demand content as a vehicle for new revenue for programmers.”
Canoe has faced a rough road over the last year. Its early attempts to coordinate interactive ads across cable fizzled in early 2012 when the cable op-backed venture laid off 120 people and decided to refocus its efforts in the high-growth DAI business. The BlackArrow deal announced this week should inject more energy into Canoe’s DAI push—while boosting BlackArrow’s profile in an increasingly competitive vendor arena.
By the way, Canoe began rolling out DAI late last year with early adopter FearNET, and the venture has started trials with a number of NBCU nets. Canoe has promised additional programmer announcements “in the near future.”