Products / Services

TVN Will Support All of Grace Creek’s VOD Initiatives Including Re-launch of Sportskool

Los Angeles, California, January 8, 2009 - TVN Entertainment Corp., the world’s largest television on demand company, today announced a comprehensive long-term, industry-wide VOD services deal with Grace Creek Media, a Washington, D.C.-based production, distribution and management company. Under the agreement, TVN will support all of Grace Creek’s VOD initiatives including the re-launch of SPORTSKOOL - the first VOD service dedicated to delivering in-depth expert sports instruction and coaching for a wide range of sports and athletic activities. Formerly owned by Rainbow Media Holdings Inc., SPORTSKOOL was recently purchased by Grace Creek Media.

The deal covers the full range of VOD services offered by TVN, including distribution and asset management services to support various codecs (MPEG2 and MPEG4), formats (SD, HD), fast turnaround requirements, distribution platforms, and advertising initiatives. The deal also provides for Grace Creek to utilize TVN’s interactive web-based asset tracking and management toolset Provider Remote Interface (PRI) which allows for live updates to their assets via metadata conversions, and provides for a broad array of services including appending, encoding/transcoding, delivery and asset management services.

“SPORTSKOOL was one of the first stand-alone VOD networks and Grace Creek, an innovator in its own right, intends to grow the network by taking advantage of the most advanced file-based technology on the market,” said Matt Cohen, SVP, Strategy & Business Development for TVN Entertainment. “TVN is the only company that provides industry-wide distribution along with comprehensive VOD tools, and backed by years of experience in the VOD space.”

“SPORTSKOOL will look to TVN to provide its unique expertise and connections, as well as the flexible platform to allow us to meet our objectives in a fast changing VOD landscape,” said Andrew Walworth, Grace Creek Media Founder and CEO. “Our agreement with TVN, along with our production and distribution agreement with USA TODAY LIVE, the television production arm of the nation's top-selling newspaper, will allow us to re-launch SPORTSKOOL as an extraordinary VOD instructional sports service.”

The re-launch of SPORTSKOOL is Grace Creek Media’s introduction into the VOD market. The company has won numerous awards for its original programs and has produced programming for more than a dozen different cable networks as well as public television.

In addition to providing comprehensive VOD services to cable, telecommunications, and DBS providers, TVN packages, distributes and manages over 8300 hours of programming from nearly 200 content providers including every major movie studio. TVN also maintains an exclusive roster of eight unique VOD networks. Beyond content distribution, TVN also supplies comprehensive marketing support and asset management services via their Emmy-nominated system ADONISS.

Grace Creek Media is a Washington-based production, distribution and management company whose goal is to create value through the creation, acquisition and development of cross-media properties and branded distribution platforms. Founder and CEO Andrew Walworth has more than 25 years of experience in the television industry, with extensive executive level experience and expertise in creative development, financing, production, distribution, advertising, marketing, and rights management. The company has won numerous awards for its original programs and has produced programming for more than a dozen different cable networks as well as public television.

TVN Entertainment Corporation, the leading television on-demand company, works with every major studio, network, and telecommunications video provider in North America. TVN is the preferred provider of original on-demand programs and networks. TVN supports an open, advanced technology platform, and offers the most comprehensive, end-to-end solution for licensing, managing, distributing and marketing on-demand content to virtually any platform.