Cable Vet Joins ICTV’s Web-to-TV Group
New ActiveMedia Group GM Allibhoy Comes from ClickStar
By Christian Lewis -- Multichannel News, 3/26/2007 1:46:00 PM
Cable and Internet entertainment veteran Nizar Allibhoy linked up with ICTV, becoming senior vice president and general manager of the company’s newest branch, ActiveMedia Group.
The Los Angeles-based group is dedicated to Web-created, TV-delivered programming.
“There are two principal areas that I’m going to be focused on,” Allibhoy said. “One is developing new programming services that will work on ActiveVideo.” Those services will cross platforms, from Internet to mobile technologies to traditional television.
“The other part of the mandate from my group is to work very closely with programmers and help them to develop product and new programming for the ActiveVideo platform,” he added. ActiveVideo delivers Web-driven programming as MPEG video in combination with both live and on-demand streams via cable and Internet-protocol TV.
Allibhoy has worked for Time Warner Cable, Sony Pictures Digital and, most recently, ClickStar, the online-film-distribution company co-founded by actor Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment and Intel.
Allibhoy said he is excited to find a position that integrates his experience in multiple facets of the business.
Although it is too early to disclose some of ActiveMedia’s brand-content partners, Allibhoy confirmed that it is working with AccuWeather and Reuters to create Web-driven television channels.
“Both of those do have video, they are intensely data-driven and both of those thrive on the Internet, but our technology allows them to take that stuff and make it work on the television screen,” he added. “Our platform, from what I understand, is pretty much the only one that allows for such a transition.”
Allibhoy was most recently CEO of ClickStar, which he left prior to the commercial launch. Asked whether he left to pursue the ICTV development, Allibhoy said no, adding, “That was actually to pursue the development of my third child.”
He said to look for other ActiveMedia partnership announcements in early summer.
