Backchannelmedia Demonstrates Revolutionary Platform Linking Television Advertising and Content to the Internet

Internet to Be Used as the Back-End for Consumers to Deepen Their Engagement With Brands and Content in a Seamless Experience


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - December 19, 2007) - Backchannelmedia Inc., a Boston-based digital television ad serving and response capture company, today announced that the Company has passed a key technical milestone for their revolutionary television platform. Backchannelmedia has successfully demonstrated the first televised click-through where a viewer can interact through a standard TV remote control with a television advertisement and automatically, securely and seamlessly pass the viewer product or content interest into an e-commerce site hosted outside the television platform and linked to the viewer's personal home page web site ("the Internet back-end"). The company also announced they will begin trials of the technology, which has been under development for 10 years in anticipation of the 2009 digital conversion, with at least one major market affiliate during Q2 of 2008.

With Backchannelmedia's patented technology, a viewer watching a live TV show or a recorded show from a DVR -- without interrupting the viewing experience -- will be able to click and transfer information in advertisements or content directly to a personal and customizable home page set up by the viewer and hosted on the Internet outside of the television platform, similar in look and feel to many of the Internet's popular home page web sites. Products can then be ordered securely through the viewer's existing favorite web sites in a familiar and safe environment, and content can be downloaded, purchased, bookmarked and/or viewed on the web with the simple click of one button on the TV remote. For example, a viewer could see a popular recording artist perform on television and then through one click of their remote control could either bookmark the CD in Amazon or immediately download the song from a digital music site, thus capturing the value of the transaction for all parties to enjoy. As a result, television advertisers and broadcasters will know who is responding to their advertising dollars and broadcasts, precisely who is shopping from their web sites based on television exposure and immediately improve upon campaigns, and link advertisers' traditional and digital advertising budgets forever.

"Our solution solves the riddle of getting consumers content where and when they want it," said Dan Hassan, Co-CEO of Backchannelmedia. "Backchannelmedia will become the definition of advertiser engagement, as moving consumer interest from TV directly to the linked Internet back-end satisfies Madison Avenue's desire to deliver integrated marketing messages tailored for the consumer. In addition, broadcasters and advertisers will be able work together to determine the appropriate TV click through rates free from today's limiting online text link auction environment."

The Backchannelmedia solution was designed to work with the vast majority of all e-commerce, content web sites, and video portals that already reside on the World Wide Web. The solution requires minimal configuration of the technical environment for broadcast television stations and cable networks and can work with most television media buying software already installed at thousands of advertising agencies and advertisers.

Backchannelmedia's four extensive patent pending applications were designed to leverage existing technologies such as the TV remote and broadcast and cable automation systems to bring accountability to television advertising. This "consumer opt-in" solution was designed to build upon the relevancy of the television platform, which the Company believes is the backbone of the nation's communications infrastructure, by insuring that Internet design challenges such as click fraud, dead and irrelevant search links, copyright theft, spam, phishing, and blind behavioral targeting will not cross over into the wireline and wireless digital television spectrum delivery platforms. Backchannelmedia's intuitive consumer touch point bridges the gap between the TV and Internet worlds through the "tagging" or "bookmarking" of TV content and moves both platforms towards addressability and accountability.

"The system has been carefully designed to not only utilize the broadcast digital spectrum with a return path outside the cable infrastructure, but future Backchannelmedia deployments will also leverage the cable plant's switched digital environment, as we continue to be proactive in tackling new industry platforms," said Michael Kokernak, Co-CEO of Backchannelmedia and the primary inventor of the system.

Demonstrations of the system are now being conducted at Backchannelmedia's Boston-office and engineering facility by invitation only. The company is currently building several "broadcast and cable head-end in a box" transportable demonstration devices and expects to be hosting week long educational meetings at conference centers in New York City and Los Angeles sometime during Q3 of 2008.

About Backchannelmedia Inc.

Boston-based Backchannelmedia Inc. was founded in 2000 with the belief that television advertising should become accountable. According to Erwin Ephron, the father of modern media planning, Backchannelmedia offers "an interactive TV advertising model that provides better targeting and immediate feedback to a message. Both make TV a far more attractive selling tool." Backchannelmedia's model is backed by four extensive patent applications, as well as several proprietary Web applications including Backchannelmedia Research. Backchannelmedia Research is the first generation "TV click to the web" media buying and analyzing software application and currently it offers media planners the most comprehensive, free Web-based planning tool available today with approximately 450,000 monthly visitors accessing over 1.5 Million pages of television research on a monthly basis as well. The Company since the year 2004 has published "Backchannelmedia Connected" a 22,000 subscriber daily industry newsletter tracking the digital conversion and television advertising in general.

Backchannelmedia is currently designing a complete "continuous loop" system that merges direct marketing, Internet advertising, and television advertising industries into one platform driven by automated, optimized targeting and actual television consumer response results. The Company believes that as digital television morphs into a blended mass media and opt-in direct marketing vehicle consumers will benefit through greater video channel selection, increased digital consumer privacy controls, increased high definition television content, increased competition among the multichannel providers, as well as eventually lower prices for multichannel video services. Thus Backchannelmedia's patent pending approach to video and advertising delivery will over the next five to seven years satisfy the underlying drivers of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which have been to stimulate competition, choice, and competitive pricing for consumers in regards to multichannel video providers and communications in general.

Backchannelmedia anticipates launching a closed over-the air-trial of the technology through a limited number of digital television stations and content providers during the second quarter of 2008. The solution was designed to work with most technologies already installed within the nation's broadcasting and cable facilities as well as work with current advertising industry work processes thus insuring a clear path to conversion of the United States television platform to include the "TV click to the Web" consumer touch point as well as open up scores of new revenue opportunities for broadcasters and advertisers. The company is privately funded with $9.5 Million raised to date through a seed round.

For more information, please visit www.backchannelmedia.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Terry Frechette Lois Paul & Partners 781.782.5791 Terry_Frechette@lpp.com