blinkx, the world´s largest video search engine, today announced a
partnership with HIT Entertainment (www.hitentertainment.com), one of
the world´s leading independent children´s producers and rights
owners. HIT´s award-winning programming includes Bob the Builder(TM)
and Thomas and Friends, and from this month will be readily available
at www.blinkx.com. Under the terms of the agreement, blinkx will
leverage its AdHoc platform to place contextually relevant advertising
to complement the popular pre-school shows from HIT Entertainment.
With a catalog comprised of programming seen in more than 240
countries and in over 45 different languages, HIT Entertainment is
home to colorful, educational content that resonates with children
across the globe. Viewers will now have access to programming ranging
from Barney(TM), the huggable Tyrannosaurus Rex, to the colorful
cave-dwellers of Fraggle Rock(TM).
"As more parents turn to the Web for stimulating, wholesome
entertainment for their children, it becomes increasingly important
for us to make this type of programming easily accessible," said
Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. "We´re delighted to
be bringing HIT Entertainment´s quality content to blinkx.com."
"With a portfolio of award-winning properties, HIT´s shows aim to
engage, inspire, educate and delight children all over the world,"
said Ryan Tunstall, IT & Operations director, HIT Entertainment. "We
are delighted to be working with blinkx to increase the distribution
of our shows worldwide and perfectly complements and supports our
digital strategy in reaching a global audience."
As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a
reputation as the smartest way to search new forms of online content
such as video. With more than 220 partners and 18 million hours of
indexed video and audio content, including favorite TV moments, news
clips, short documentaries, music videos, video blogs and more, blinkx
uses advanced speech-recognition technology to deliver results that
are more accurate and reliable than standard metadata-based keyword
searches.
About blinkx
blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world´s most comprehensive video
search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 18 million hours of
audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and
available on demand. blinkx´s founders set out to solve a significant
challenge - as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode,
keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx´s
patented search technologies listen to - and even see - the Web,
helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not
available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for
many of the world´s most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San
Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.
About HIT Entertainment
HIT Entertainment, owned by private equity investment group Apax
Partners, is one of the world´s leading independent children´s
entertainment producers and rights-owners. HIT´s portfolio includes
properties, such as Barney(TM), Bob the Builder(TM), Thomas &
Friends(TM), Pingu(TM), Fireman Sam(TM), Angelina Ballerina(TM) and
Rainbow Magic(TM). HIT represents Chapman Entertainment´s Fifi and the
Flowertots(TM) and Roary the Racing Car(TM) in North America and
Japan, as well as Wallace & Gromit(TM), Shaun the Sheep(TM) and
Aardman Classics from Aardman Animations. HIT also acts as a worldwide
representative for The Jim Henson Company´s library of classic family
brands and as representative for The Wiggles(R) in the UK. Launched in
1989, HIT´s lines of business span television and video production,
content distribution, publishing, consumer products licensing and live
events and has operations in the UK, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan.
HIT is a part-owner of US-based preschool channel, PBS KIDS
Sprout(SM), and international preschool channel JimJam, (outside of
the US, UK and China). For more information, visit
www.hitentertainment.com.
