Comcast Expands Its DPIs

Cable World, Sept 15, 2003

Byline: ANTHONY CRUPI

Digital programming insertion is cable's Six Million Dollar Man. After years of technical fine tuning and a radical re-engineering of the existing corpus, DPI is better, stronger, faster. The only problem is, as was the case with Steve Austin, the thing always seems to be moving in slow motion.

It's not, of course. In the past year, DPI (specifically the ad insertion part) has begun to show signs of super-sonic acceleration. This July Comcast announced that it had racked up over 60 million successful DPIs in its Los Angeles system, an impressive figure by any measure, and even more so when you consider that the defining CableLabs specs were developed less than a year before.

One of the vendors that provides Comcast with its bionics is nCube, which also happens to be the industry's ad-insertion pace-setter. Building on the success of the L.A. project, both parties agreed to switch out the incumbent ad server equipment in Comcast's Miami system and replace it with nCube gear.

The switch, which will affect 16 ad zones, is already under way, said John Boland, VP & GM of nCube's advertising systems group.

"Miami is a good-sized project," Boland said. "The transition can be very disruptive, so we have to make sure we can preserve that continuity. If we do that, then we've really done our job."

Gearing up in Miami should give local ad sales a shot in the arm. Boland estimates that advertisers who buy time in systems that don't have the capacity to offer DPI risk losing "up to 30% of their potential audience."

In a DPI-enabled system, however, a single digital ad can serve each zone, which cuts down on storage costs. What's more, the embedded digital cue tones ensure proper ad placement and may be used as a means to introduce targeted advertising down the road.

All of which will provide Comcast Miami advertisers with a "greater opportunity to reach their audience," said Theresa Fletcher, VP and GM of ad sales for the system.

Another key advantage of nCube's DPI solution is its ability to handle hi-def advertising, Boland said. Although HD is in its infancy, enough high-profile programming is being produced to create a demand for matching ad spots. "It's a question of critical mass," Boland said. "The last thing a CTO wants to worry about is ad insertion. That's their proven revenue stream."

THE NEXT QUESTION:

*While DPI is essential for the health of local ad sales, deployments are still pokey. Will success in Miami speed up deployments?