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Private Launches VOD

By: Jed Nottingham

Posted: 05/30/2007

BARCELONA, Spain - Private Media Group Inc. today announced the launch of its video-on-demand content on the IP-TV platform Club Internet in France as part of the "Club Internet 3 Triple-Play" offer.

Based on the MSTV platform, Club Internet 3 offers more than 150 TV channels and a library of 2,500 VOD/SVOD titles, including news, movies, and documentaries. This innovative and user-friendly service is both HD and DTT ready and features instant channel-switching, catch-up-TV, pause and rewind functions of live transmissions, PVR and PVR Web, picture-in-picture, and a universal remote control for all TV equipment.

With this agreement, Private takes another step forward in its aggressive strategy to make its content accessible to more than 90 percent of French IP-TV subscribers before the end of 2007. The agreement provides access to hundreds of titles from Private's extensive proprietary movie library and includes both new releases as well as classic titles.

"We are delighted with being able to feature our content on Club Internet's advanced MSTV platform, which is the first of its kind in France," said Peter Cohen, chief operating officer for Private Media Group. "This agreement with a leading telco is another strategic move for Private in the dynamic European IP-TV/VOD market. France, with its population of 62 million people, is the overwhelmingly dominant IP-TV market in Europe, and by adding the Club Internet agreement to our VOD/IP-TV distribution, we now cover approximately 50 percent of all IP-TV subscribers in France.

"Over the next few weeks, we will increase our reach to 75 percent of the IP-TV subscribers in France, and before the end of the year, we expect to cover more than 90 percent through consolidation taking place in the marketplace," continued Cohen. "In addition, the French market in general is expected to generate the bulk of the forecast aggressive growth in the European IP-TV market this year. Consequently, we expect this development to have a very positive impact on our business going forward."

The company is of the firm belief that IP-TV in Europe will be the TV delivery platform of choice for the pay-TV consumer, Cohen added.

According to global IP-TV forecasts made by Multimedia Research Group Inc., the number of global IP-TV subscribers is estimated to grow from 8 million in 2006 to 63.6 million in 2011. Europe continues to be the biggest market for IP-TV, with France significantly leading the growth projections through its principal telcos. The number of IP-TV subscribers in Europe is projected to grow from approximately 4 million in 2006 to 27.5 million in 2011, a compound annual growth rate of 47 percent.

Club Internet is one of the leading Internet service providers in France. In November 2005, the company deployed the first network of the previous-generation full IP, and the first next-generation offer based on MSTV system in Europe in June 2006.

Private Media Group owns the worldwide rights to its extensive archive of top-quality content and licenses its Private and Silver Girls trademarks internationally.