RTHM.L Regulatory News (RTHM)

8 Apr 2008 07:01

Blinkx Plc08 April 2008 blinkx Partners with HIT Entertainment to Offer Popular Children's Programming Thomas & Friends(TM)steam into town at www.blinkx.com SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - April 08, 2008 - blinkx, the world's largest videosearch engine, today announced a partnership with HIT Entertainment(www.hitentertainment.com), one of the world's leading independent children'sproducers and rights owners. HIT's award-winning programming includes Bob theBuilder(TM)and Thomas and Friends, and from this month will be readily availableat www.blinkx.com. Under the terms of the agreement, blinkx will leverage itsAdHoc platform to place contextually relevant advertising to complement thepopular pre-school shows from HIT Entertainment. With a catalog comprised of programming seen in more than 240 countries and inover 45 different languages, HIT Entertainment is home to colorful, educationalcontent that resonates with children across the globe. Viewers will now haveaccess 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 fortheir children, it becomes increasingly important for us to make this type ofprogramming easily accessible," said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO,blinkx. "We're delighted to be bringing HIT Entertainment's quality content toblinkx.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 workingwith blinkx to increase the distribution of our shows worldwide and perfectlycomplements and supports our digital strategy in reaching a global audience." As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as thesmartest way to search new forms of online content such as video. With more than220 partners and 18 million hours of indexed video and audio content, includingfavorite TV moments, news clips, short documentaries, music videos, video blogsand more, blinkx uses advanced speech-recognition technology to deliver resultsthat are more accurate and reliable than standard metadata-based keywordsearches. About blinkx blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's most comprehensive video searchengine. 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 anduser-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologiesonly scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to - andeven see - the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search resultsnot available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many ofthe 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, isone of the world's leading independent children's entertainment producers andrights-owners. HIT's portfolio includes properties, such as Barney(TM), Bob theBuilder(TM), Thomas & Friends(TM), Pingu(TM), Fireman Sam(TM), Angelina Ballerina(TM)and Rainbow Magic(TM) HIT represents Chapman Entertainment's Fifiand 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 fromAardman Animations. HIT also acts as a worldwide representative for The JimHenson Company's library of classic family brands and as representative for TheWiggles(R) in the UK. Launched in 1989, HIT's lines of business span televisionand video production, content distribution, publishing, consumer productslicensing and live events and has operations in the UK, US, Canada, Hong Kongand Japan. HIT is a part-owner of US-based preschool channel, PBS KIDSSprout(SM), and international preschool channel JimJam, (outside of the US, UK and China). For more information, visit www.hitentertainment.com. Press Contacts:Tim TurpinSparkpr+1 (415) 321 1894tim.turpin@sparkpr.com Clare GaynerBite Communications+44 (0)20 8834 3454Clare.Gayner@bitepr.com Nicole PriceHIT EntertainmentDirect: +44 (0)20 7554 3613Mobile: +44 (0) 7891 934488nprice@hitentertainment.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange