New York, NY, January 17, 2012 – BlackArrow, a worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New TV platforms, today announced a trio of strategic hires that bolsters the company’s multiplatform advertising marketplace expertise and builds upon its accomplished management team. The new executives bring proven success in on-demand and linear television; social and broadband video; and the advertising and media marketplaces to broaden BlackArrow’s expertise in providing advertising technology and services to monetize TV content across multiple platforms.

The new appointments include:

• Dr. Joseph Matarese, CTO – a highly regarded, senior cable television and telecommunications technology executive, renowned for thought-leadership and innovation in the development of on-demand advertising and content systems;

• Tricia Iboshi, senior vice president, client services and operations – a proven veteran of the IP video and social video markets with KitDigital and thePlatform; and

• Dean McCormick, vice president, advertising solutions – a media executive with extensive experience in ad sales, strategy and business development

“The ability to successfully monetize television content is the lever that will ultimately drive the market success of multiplatform viewing,” said Dean Denhart, CEO of BlackArrow. “Joe, Tricia and Dean collectively have the advanced advertising expertise and the diversity of platform experience required to drive viewer engagement and new revenue across multiple devices for service providers, programmers and advertisers.”

Dr. Joseph Matarese was most recently vice president and general manager of the On Demand Business Unit for ARRIS Group, where he was a key figure in the product development of on-demand advertising and switched IP-based video systems deployed worldwide. Holder of a Ph.D. in Geophysics from MIT, Matarese began his cable career in 1995 with nCUBE, where he rose from field service engineer to CTO. Following the acquisition of nCUBE by C-COR, he served as senior vice president of global advanced technology with C-COR. He joined ARRIS upon the acquisition of C-COR in 2007. Matarese is a published scientific author, and an active member of cable community organizations such the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).

Tricia Iboshi has more than 16 years’ experience in the digital media arena, delivering broadband video and content syndication solutions to media companies and content aggregators. Most recently senior vice president, sales, at KIT digital, Iboshi also held senior-management positions as the executive vice president of sales with KickApps, and vice president of sales with thePlatform. Earlier in her career, Iboshi had been co-founder and vice president of business development of RocketVox, which was acquired by thePlatform in 2001. Her expertise across business development, product sales, account development and sales engineering will be critical to the continued success of BlackArrow’s client deployments.

Dean McCormick is an advertising and media industry veteran who brings a decade-and-a-half of experience in ad sales, media strategy and business development to BlackArrow, where he will drive advertising market development and content-monetization solutions for New TV. Prior to joining BlackArrow, Dean McCormick had been co-founder of Mix Media, an advertising sales and marketing services company representing advanced TV networks and digital entertainment properties. As executive vice president, interactive strategy and business development at Havoc Television, his responsibilities encompassed ad sales, audience research and interactive programming development. McCormick also served as production manager for New York Times Television, and began his career with Bill Moyers in the public television sector.

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New TV platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures (NYSE: MOT), NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

# # #

BlackArrow, and the BlackArrow logo are trademarks of BlackArrow, Inc. All rights reserved.

New York, NY, January 6, 2012 –BlackArrow, a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New TV platforms, today announced that Kelly Ryan, vice president, content business development, has been recognized for her leadership in the multichannel video industry.

Ryan, a leading figure in driving the adoption of new technologies for cable telecommunications providers, has been named one of 12 “Women to Watch” for 2012 by Multichannel News – a leading trade publication. The “Women to Watch” and Multichannel News’ 2012 class of “Wonder Women” will be recognized at a luncheon on March 13 at the New York Hilton.

The award is the second recognition of Ryan’s work in recent months.  Previously, she was honored as one of 50 technology executives named as “Top Women in Cable Tech” by CableFax: The Magazine.

“Kelly Ryan’s programmer relationships and her practical application of new technologies have been invaluable to BlackArrow,” said Nick Troiano, president of BlackArrow. “Her ability to work closely with the cable community has accelerated content provider adoption of the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System, as well as programmer participation in our Advanced Advertising Media Project (AAMP) research initiative.”

With deep ties to cable industry innovation, Ryan has helped to drive the growth of digital networks, DVRs, new media and other advances during a 15-year career with Time Warner, Viacom and News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment Group. With BlackArrow, she has led programmer participation in VOD market trials and deployments, and has been a key catalyst for programmer support of AAMP – ,a research-based initiative founded by the 4A’s, BlackArrow and other media and advertising market leaders to measure the impact of advertising within free video-on-demand (VOD) content.

The complete list of “Wonder Women” and “Women to Watch” honorees is available at http://www.multichannel.com/info/2013-Wonder_Women_Luncheon.php

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New TV platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures (NYSE: MOT), NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

BlackArrow and the BlackArrow logo are trademarks of BlackArrow, Inc.

The landmark study, which examined the viewing behavior of more than 1,000 consumers, revealed that advertising within a VOD environment has a positive impact on the level of engagement of consumers — enabling agencies, cable operators and networks to leverage full, linear TV ad loads, while allowing advertisers to utilize longer-form approaches that can serve as avenues for enhanced creativity.

Conducted at unprecedented scale with television programming from 11 AAMP member broadcast and cable networks and branded messaging from 10 national advertisers across six categories, the AAMP study revealed four basic themes:

• Advertisements within a VOD context statistically have the same impact, no matter what the size of the ad load;
• Because consumers view VOD as television, they accept advertising on VOD as a logical part of the on-demand experience;
• On-demand television has a positive effect on consumers’ sense of control over content and advertising; and
• VOD provides opportunities for increased ad durations that can foster greater storytelling and information sharing by advertisers

“When it comes to advertising, the ‘TV Environment‘ absolutely matters,” said Bill Koenigsberg, president, CEO and founder of Horizon Media. “If there is one finding from this study that is particularly relevant to the media industry, it’s this: consumers will watch, recall and respond even to heavy loads of ads within VOD programming.”

“The AAMP findings mirror our own customers’ favorable response to increased choice and control with their entertainment viewing,” said Marcien Jenckes, senior vice president and general manager, video services for Comcast. “Our ultimate goal is to provide our customers with the best programming content available, while providing opportunities for sponsors and advertisers to benefit from the On Demand platform.”

Conducted by Ipsos OTX, Phase II of the AAMP study tested three different VOD ad loads within 19 primetime TV shows or segments of 30 minutes each. The test formats included: a “Light” load with three minutes of inventory; a “Moderate” load of five and one-half minutes of advertising; and a “Heavy” load which contained eight minutes of advertising. In addition, the study tested a second version of the “Light” load that included a 90-second ad unit. All groups were benchmarked against the standard eight-minute linear ad load.

Participants watched comedy, drama and reality programming that contained ads from various categories such automotive, consumer products, financial services, pharmaceutical, retail and technology. The tests were conducted in custom-built media labs in New York and Los Angeles, and utilized a sophisticated set-top box VOD interface that was custom-built by NDS, a leading global provider of digital TV technology and advanced advertising solutions for the pay TV industry. Consumers used a specially created mobile handset app to record their experiences while viewing; in addition, in-depth follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 participants.

Among the most significant findings were clear indications that:

The size of the ad load has no impact on viewer engagement with VOD.
Aided recall of advertised brands was statistically the same (63%-64% for light loads and 58% and 59% for moderate and heavy loads). In addition, VOD ads delivered an uplift of between three and five percentage points across all loads in both interest in finding out about a particular brand, and purchase intent for an advertised brand.

Advertising with VOD does not impact viewer enjoyment.

Between 31% and 38% of participants across all ad loads rated the TV viewing experience as “excellent,” and between 65% and 75% rated the experience as “excellent” or “very good.” This compares favorably to the “excellent” (29%) and “excellent or very good” (66%) for linear television. For all ad loads, enjoyment increased throughout the show. Further, it was clear from post-test, in-depth consumer interviews with randomly selected participants that the presence of ads across a diversity of media platforms has increased acceptance of ads in general.

Consumers are more receptive to longer-form ads on VOD, and that longer-form ads can have a greater impact than traditional 30-second spots.
Viewer interest in finding out more about a particular brand featured in a 90-second ad was 64% higher than interest elicited by the same 90-second ad in linear television, and fully double the interest generated by a VOD 30-second advertisement.

Additional Study Detail and Reports
The Phase II study follows the first phase of AAMP — an in-depth qualitative study that established a baseline understanding of perceptions among industry thought leaders and influencers around dynamic VOD advertising. Public reports discussing the findings of Phase I and Phase II are available for download at aamp.blackarrow.tv. Phase III, a market trial leveraging findings from the prior phases, will be conducted in the first half of 2012.

About AAMP
The Advanced Advertising Media Project (AAMP) is an industry-wide research initiative created to measure the effectiveness of advertising within free, on-demand television programs. The multistage project is comprised of three parts: an in-depth industry survey, a consumer VOD media research laboratory, and a live, in-market trial. AAMP participants include stakeholders from various disciplines around the industry, including 4A’s, A&E Television Networks, ABC, AMC Networks, BlackArrow, CBS, Comcast, CTAM, Digitas, Discovery Communications, Horizon Media, Intel, NBCU and NDS. http://aamp.blackarrow.tv

About the 4A’s
The 4A’s is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. Its membership comprises virtually all of the large, multinational agencies and hundreds of small to mid-sized agencies across the country. The 1,200 member agency offices served by the 4A’s employ 65,000 people; offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry’s spokesperson with government, media, and the public sector. www.aaaa.org and @4As.

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New Television platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures, NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

# # #

BlackArrow is a trademark of BlackArrow, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

New York, NY, October 31, 2011 – BlackArrow, a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New TV platforms, today announced that Kelly Ryan, vice president, content business development, has been named one the “Top Women in Cable Tech” by CableFAX, a leading industry trade publication. The “Top Women in Cable Tech” award highlights women representing cable system operators, programmers and vendors who are leading the development and adoption of technologies that are changing the face of the cable industry.

Ryan, who has led content provider adoption of the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System and supported programmer participation in the company’s Advanced Advertising Media Project (AAMP) research initiative, is among a select group of women in the cable industry who are being recognized by CableFAX: The Magazine. A total of 50 women technology executives, as well as CableFax’s “Most Powerful Women in Cable” honorees, will be recognized at an awards ceremony on December 9 in New York City.

“Driving the adoption of new technologies and business models are crucial to the growth of advanced advertising in cable,” said Nick Troiano, president of BlackArrow. “Kelly Ryan’s industry expertise and strong relationships within the media community have been instrumental in growing the knowledge base and market deployment of New TV ad models.”

With deep ties to cable industry innovation, Ryan has helped to drive the growth of digital networks, DVRs, New Media and other advances during a 15-year career with Time Warner, Viacom and News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment Group. With BlackArrow, she has led programmer participation in VOD market trials and deployments, and has been a key catalyst for programmer support of AAMP, an initiative founded by the 4A’s, BlackArrow and other media and advertising market leaders to measure the impact of advertising within free Video-on-Demand (VOD) content.

The complete list of award winners is available at:
http://www.cablefax.com/cfp/events/most_powerful_women2011_honorees.html

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New TV platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures (NYSE: MOT), NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

The Document Profile Architecture (DPA) Toolset is designed to encourage collaboration and development of advertising implementations tied to the SCTE-130 specification set. The SCTE-130 specification set prescribes techniques and approaches for the delivery of interactive and highly relevant advertising messages within cable-delivered video-on-demand and other media environments.

The publicly accessible resources for the DPA Toolset are now available dpatools.cablelabs.com.

“By opening access to the DPA Toolset to vendors, developers and the public at large, CableLabs is offering a speed-to-market resource that will accelerate the availability of technologies supporting advancements in electronic advertisement delivery, including the dynamic insertion of commercials into viewer-requested VOD streams,” said Don Dulchinos, CableLabs Senior Vice President, Advertising and Interactive Services.

The DPA Toolset streamlines the testing and validation process for SCTE-130-compliant technologies by allowing developers to emulate multi-platform architectures involved in the delivery of interactive advertising messages and related content across an array of distribution channels. These channels may include VOD streams, web pages, interactive program guides and other media vehicles.

The DPA Toolset solves a pressing challenge for advanced advertising technology developers: the need to assure interoperability across complex labyrinths of web services and message flows involved in the dynamic delivery of targeted advertising to cable customers. The DPA Toolset provides a specific, well-defined, interoperable and multi-vendor message set for each use case that occurs in the implementation of advanced advertising at national, regional and local levels. With the DPA Toolset, technology developers can test the performance of their solutions in advance of deployment at both isolated service points and across multiple service points involved in advanced advertising implementations.

How it works

The DPA Toolset creates profiles that define the valid web services message for every use case tied to SCTE-130 implementations. These profiles, combined with Web Service Description Language (WSDL) descriptions that define the functionality and parameters of web services involved in SCTE 130 implementations, can be used to test all elements and attributes of messages in an environment that emulates real-world deployments.

The toolset provides a two-pronged approach: a set of profiles and a tool to exercise those profiles. The profiles are exercised in a software emulator that can represent any SCTE-130 service at the message level. The toolset allows any mixture of real and emulated devices to make up a testable configuration. It validates that an actual message exchange contains the correct set of messages, and validates each message exchanged against a specific example of a profile.

Interop event

CableLabs hosted an interoperability event in July 2011 that allowed advanced advertising vendors to exercise the DPA Toolset for the first time.

“It’s critical to our business that the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System maintains support for the latest standards — ensuring seamless deployments, and maximum interoperability. The DPA Toolset offers our development team a ready resource for testing and verifying the interactions of complex technologies within a real-world emulation environment,” said Chris Hock, Senior Vice President of Product for BlackArrow. “Our participation in the advanced advertising event held at CableLabs this summer enabled us to use the DPA Toolset in a laboratory environment to verify key interoperable aspects of our technical development.”

Although the DPA Toolset is initially directed at implementing and testing SCTE-130 messaging, the technology is generic to any web services messaging environment, including very large and complex problem spaces. The CableLabs community license allows free, non-commercial use of the DPA Toolset to address any problem space. CableLabs invites developers to contact the organization for further commercial use or distribution.

About CableLabs:

Cable Television Laboratories (www.cablelabs.com) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. The Emmy Award winning laboratory is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org, www.ebif.tv and www.tru2way.com.

Advanced Digital Cable^™, CableCARD^™, CableHome^®, CableLabs^®, CableNET^®, CablePC^™, DCAS^™, DPoE^™, DOCSIS^®, EBIF^™, Go2Broadband^SM, M-Card^™, OpenCable^™, PacketCable^™, PeerConnect™, and tru2way^® are marks of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc.

CONTACT

CableLabs
Kari Hiatt, 303-661-9100
info@cablelabs.com

View the video live on Comcast’s blog:

NEW YORK & PHILADELPHIA – Comcast and NBCUniversal today announced that they are partnering to use dynamic ad insertion in On Demand programming, further leveraging the On Demand service as an advertising platform. Dynamic ad insertion, which is a service that allows for advertisements to be easily changed at any time, has begun rolling out in several Comcast markets, with plans to expand to the majority of Comcast markets in the coming year. Chrysler and Kraft are the premiere advertisers.

“Our business is all about delivering the impressions our local clients need, across multiple platforms”

Content from USA Network, E!, Syfy, Bravo Media and Oxygen Media that airs On Demand on Comcast Cable systems will be part of the rollout, which will initially focus on advertisements that run prior to and after a show (pre-roll and post-roll ads) and include dynamic ad insertion for advertisements throughout the show (mid-roll ads) later this year. Content from additional NBCUniversal networks is expected to be added to the service in the coming months.

“On Demand programming is a key way to reach today’s consumers and an important part of an advertiser’s marketing mix,” said Ed Swindler, EVP and Chief Operating Officer, NBCUniversal Advertising Sales. “This capability helps make the service more advertiser-friendly, giving clients greater flexibility to ensure their ads remain timely and relevant.”

“With more than 20 billion views On Demand since we launched the service in 2003, and an average of 350 million views per month, the service is a proven platform to reach consumers,” said Marcien Jenckes, SVP and General Manager of Video Services, Comcast. “Enabling dynamic ad insertion will create more value for advertisers, content owners and Comcast, and allow us to further monetize the VOD platform while presenting more relevant advertising to our customers.”

Traditionally, ads are inserted manually into On Demand programming and remain in place throughout a show’s full window of availability. Technology from BlackArrow’s Advanced Advertising System allows ads to be easily changed or revised when necessary, allowing clients to more effectively target their marketing messages. Comcast will make this capability available to other programming networks on its systems in coordination with Canoe Ventures, which will also enable this capability to a broader footprint covering multiple operators by early 2012.

Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, is bringing dynamic ad insertion to local advertising clients as well. Local advertisers utilizing the technology include South Florida McDonald’s, Richmond’s nTelos, Virginia Credit Union, NBC12/WBBT-TV and Batteries Plus.

“Our business is all about delivering the impressions our local clients need, across multiple platforms,” said Kevin Smith, Group Vice President, Spotlight Integrated Media Sales. “Dynamic ad insertion offers clients the opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience, with the accountability and efficiency they’ve come to expect from Comcast Spotlight.”

About Comcast Corporation:
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) (www.comcast.com) is one of the nation’s leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services. Comcast is principally involved in the operation of cable systems through Comcast Cable and in the development, production and distribution of entertainment, news, sports and other content for global audiences through NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is one of the nation’s largest video, high-speed Internet and phone providers to residential and business customers. Comcast is the majority owner and manager of NBCUniversal, which owns and operates entertainment and news cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, local television station groups, television production operations, a major motion picture company and theme parks.

About NBCUniversal:
NBCUniversal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group and world-renowned theme parks. Comcast Corporation owns a controlling 51% interest in NBCUniversal, with GE holding a 49% stake.

Contacts

Comcast:
Alana Davis, 215-286-5211
Alana_Davis@comcast.com

or

NBCUniversal:
Liz Fischer, 212-664-4825
Liz.Fischer@nbcuni.com

San Jose, Calif., June 9, 2011 – BlackArrow, a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New Television platforms, will showcase enhancements to the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System that enable centralized, multiplatform advertising management across tablet, smartphone and television environments at The Cable Show in Chicago. The company also will demonstrate the latest version of its dynamic ad solution for video-on-demand (VOD) television, announced last week.

The BlackArrow Multiplatform Advanced Advertising Showcase (booth ES-19) will feature new support for iOS- and Android-based tablets and smartphones. The exhibit will highlight BlackArrow’s sophisticated suite of placement and ad management controls that provide customers with an integrated workflow for core elements of advanced advertising across multiple platforms, including consistent addressability; integrated inventory allocation and ad packaging; and unified ad management and reporting.

BlackArrow also will highlight new features of its Advanced Advertising System in the context of a live VOD market scenario. The showcase will demonstrate dynamic ad insertion using scenarios that highlight broadcast-window based ad packaging, as well as integrated, “single pitch” workflows that enable programmers to use the same content assets for both static and dynamic VOD advertising.

“A unified approach to advertising management is critical to the success of advertising across a broad spectrum of on-demand environments and viewing devices,” said Dean Denhart, chief executive officer for BlackArrow. “Using the same BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System that already is in-market, operators and programmers can build comprehensive advertising strategies and business models suited to any on-demand platform, along with the new generation of untethered devices.”

About The BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System
The BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System is designed specifically for the technological complexities and business issues within on-demand television advertising environments. The BlackArrow Sales Suite enables ad sales organizations to define, manage and monetize multiplatform, multioperator advertising campaigns to reach audiences who increasingly consume time-shifted programming on their televisions, computers, mobile and tablet devices. For content distributors, the BlackArrow Decision Suite offers powerful ad decisioning and proven system interoperability to streamline deployment in complex cable and distribution environments.

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New Television platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures (NYSE: MOT), NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

# # #

Media Contact:
Paul Schneider, PSPR, Inc., for BlackArrow
Tel. 215 702 9784 (office) or 215 817 4384 (mobile)
e-mail: pspr@att.net

BlackArrow is a trademark of BlackArrow, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

San Jose, Calif., June 1, 2011 – BlackArrow, a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New Television platforms, today announced a set of sophisticated enhancements to the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System that unlock the value of advertising within video-on-demand (VOD). These capabilities, which include robust, dynamic mid-roll functionality, as well as application programming interfaces (APIs) that support integrated workflows with third-party advertising systems, offer significant new revenue opportunities for local and national advertising sales teams and operational efficiencies for operators and programmers alike.

Dynamic mid-roll ad insertion expands the market opportunity for VOD advertising by enabling inventory owners to develop flexible new advertising business models that support both existing time-shifted television currencies such as Nielsen’s C3, as well as new ad packaging strategies that contemplate multiple broadcast windows or other targeting criteria. Through the use of standard broadcast metadata, the BlackArrow solution inserts advertising during time- and context-specific points in any program and enables programmers to replace – or skip altogether – any ads bound to an original static VOD asset.

These new capabilities, coupled with the existing ad policy functionality in the BlackArrow system, also provide the associated benefit of single pitch. Programmers will now be able to pitch a program asset once and leverage the same asset for static or dynamic VOD distribution, along with the corresponding flexibility to swap-out ad copy, ad creative, ad loads and other parameters without incurring the incremental costs of re-encoding and redistributing assets.

In addition, the new release includes a series of APIs that facilitate the flow of VOD orders from existing, third-party linear or online ad systems into the BlackArrow System for execution. This affords BlackArrow clients with extensive choice and flexibility in the design of their advertising workflows, and simplifies operations by leveraging the systems and processes already in place without retooling.

“VOD is more than a viewing platform, it is a form of advanced television that can support a much richer and more complex advertising environment,” said Chris Hock, senior vice president, product management for BlackArrow. “The latest version of the BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System is a feature-rich release that offers market-driving advanced advertising capabilities — combining the flexibility and monetization of TV-based advertising with the efficiencies and scale of digital distribution.”

New feature highlights summary:

• New dynamic mid-roll capabilities for VOD content significantly increases revenue opportunities
• Automated control over ad-load and trick-mode policies enable new, broadcast-date aware business models
• Innovative single-pitch asset-handling reduces costs and operational complexities by leveraging a single asset across multiple broadcast windows and operators
• Support for existing linear and online ad systems via APIs now streamlines VOD advertising workflows

About The BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System
The BlackArrow Advanced Advertising System is designed specifically for the technological complexities and business issues within on-demand television advertising environments. The BlackArrow Sales Suite enables ad sales organizations to define, manage and monetize multiplatform, multioperator advertising campaigns to reach audiences who increasingly consume time-shifted programming on their televisions, computers, mobile and handheld devices. For content distributors, the BlackArrow Decision Suite offers powerful ad decisioning and proven system interoperability to streamline deployment in complex cable and distribution environments.

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New Television platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures (NYSE: MOT), NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

# # #

Media Contact:

Paul Schneider, PSPR, Inc., for BlackArrow
Tel. 215 702 9784 (office) or 215 817 4384 (mobile)
e-mail: pspr@att.net

BlackArrow is a trademark of BlackArrow, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

San Jose, Calif. May 24, 2011 – BlackArrow, a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising solutions for New Television platforms, today announced the expansion of its business development team with the addition of Laurel Gilbert as vice president, service provider solutions.

Gilbert joins BlackArrow with more than 13 years of experience in the cable technology industry. She has held various senior business development and sales positions with Sigma Systems, Microsoft, Digeo and Starz Entertainment. With BlackArrow, Gilbert will be responsible for sales and business development of service provider accounts across North America.

“Laurel Gilbert has a broad range of expertise and relationships that are key to BlackArrow’s continued growth, ” said Nick Troiano, president of BlackArrow. “Her contributions to the team will be invaluable as we help our service provider customers build profitable on-demand businesses across a variety of viewing platforms.”

Before joining BlackArrow, Gilbert served in an executive consultancy as director of business development for Sigma Systems of Canada’s advanced advertising solutions. Prior to Sigma, she was business development and strategy analyst for Microsoft Advertising’s Emerging Media Group, where she was charged with extending Microsoft’s online advertising solutions into service providers’ digital TV and emerging advertising platforms.

Earlier, Gilbert was vice president of sales, national accounts for Digeo, Inc., where she drove distribution and expanded the market footprint for the company’s Moxi DVR product line. Gilbert also held various sales leadership positions at Starz Entertainment Group, where she was accountable for content distribution and affiliate sales and marketing strategy for various Tier 1 service providers.

Gilbert holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Virginia, and an Associate’s Degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a member of Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT), the CTAM On-Demand Consortium and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE).

About BlackArrow, Inc.
BlackArrow is a leading worldwide provider of advanced advertising technology for New Television platforms. The company’s multiplatform advertising system is designed specifically for video content distributed over any on-demand platform, enabling networks and content distributors to maximize advertising revenues. BlackArrow is privately held, and backed by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (NASDAQ: INTC), Mayfield Fund, Motorola Ventures, NDS Group, LTD., Polaris Venture Partners and Time Warner Cable. The company has offices in New York City and San Jose, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv

# # #

Media Contact:

Paul Schneider, PSPR, Inc., for BlackArrow
Tel. 215.817.4384 (office), 215.817.4384 (mobile)
pspr@att.net

BlackArrow is a trademark of BlackArrow, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.