Jericho, NY and Los Angeles, CA – October 21, 2002 – AMC cable network has teamed with interactive television (iTV) providers GoldPocket Interactive and ExtendMedia to create an interactive movie and gaming experience for the network's sixth annual MonsterFest 24/7 Halloween event. The technology will enable viewers to play interactive online games tied to the monster movies and earn entries in AMC's Plasma-Powered Sweepstakes for a chance to win a 42" plasma TV and other exciting prizes each day of the 7-day, 154-hour festival. The Plasma-Powered sweepstakes will begin on Friday, October 25 at 8 PM ET/PT on-air and online at www.amctv.com, and will air in the same time slot each night through Thursday, October 31.
"AMC is excited to provide viewers with the network's first-ever real-time interactive experience via on-air movies and online gaming, at AMC's movie-centric website, amctv.com," stated Tom Barreca, senior vice president, AMC Digital Ventures. "As the digital revolution explodes, iTV will become a more and more valuable addition to AMC's already rich slate of movies and original programming."
To enter the Plasma-Powered sweepstakes, viewers simply tune their TVs to AMC's MonsterFest 24/7 and login to www.amctv.com. Players can win entries into the sweepstakes by correctly answering the real-time trivia questions at amctv.com. The questions are based on the 8 PM movie they are watching on AMC. The sweepstakes begins on October 25, during the 8 PM ET/PT airing of "Predator 2." During each 8 PM MonsterFest 24/7 movie viewers can play the interactive game and win entries into the sweepstakes.
The Plasma-Powered sweepstakes also features trivia, "fright meters," where viewers rate the scariness of particular scenes, and polls. Game players will also be able to chat with each other and create their own private rooms. Live results from the interactive game – including a list of "who's playing now," sweepstakes winners, fright-meter and poll results – will be broadcast on-air throughout each movie.
Amctv.com will showcase MonsterFest 24/7 screen savers, Flash and Shockwave games, movie trailers, and a special preview of AMC's "Short Screamers," a collection of horror movie shorts created for AMC by amateur filmmakers. Each week a new line-up of shorts will premiere on the website. Viewers are asked to vote on their favorite.
The creative concept and design of the www.amctv.com MonsterFest 24/7 website was developed by ExtendMedia. Extend also contributed key iTV and website content, including the Q&A for the real-time interactive Plasma-Powered Sweepstakes.
"The interactivity and vibrant design of amctv.com's MonsterFest website that we created will make for a more complete engaging, fun experience for users," said Keith Kocho, founder and CEO, ExtendMedia. "We're thrilled to have helped create AMC's first entry in the real-time interactive arena."
The live iTV experience is powered by GoldPocket Interactive's EventMatrixTM technology, which enables at-home viewers to play along with the television program in real time and compete against each other on their Internet-connected PCs and Macs. The world's only two-way interactive network, the EventMatrix leverages a proprietary real-time processing engine to enable television viewers to interact directly with each other and instantaneously view audience-wide results.
"AMC's Plasma-Powered sweepstakes allows the network to further differentiate their MonsterFest 24/7 promotion by providing viewers a unique, value-added, interactive experience," said Scott Newnam, president and Chief Executive Officer of GoldPocket Interactive. "The iTV programming also enables AMC to increase the power of their branding efforts with a compelling, unified cross-platform promotion."
AMC's MonsterFest 24/7 is a 7-day, 154-hour-long Halloween marathon that is the ultimate television destination for monster movies and themed original programming. The October 25 – 31 event features over 40 films, spanning seven decades – from classic Universal titles like FRANKENSTEIN, MUMMY and DRACULA that launched the genre in the '30s to more modern movies like FRIGHT NIGHT, PREDATOR 2 and HALLOWEEN 2-5.
AMC is a 24-hour, movie-based network, dedicated to the American movie fan. The network, which reaches over 83,000,000 homes, offers a comprehensive library of popular movies and an increasingly visible, critically-acclaimed, slate of original programming that is a diverse, movie-based mix of original series, documentaries and specials. AMC has more than doubled its original programming over the past 3 years and garnered many of the industry's highest honors, including seven Emmy awards. AMC is "TV for movie people."
A leader in sports, news and entertainment programming, Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc. is a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC) and NBC. Rainbow owns and manages AMC, WE: Women's Entertainment, Bravo, IFC (The Independent Film Channel), muchmusic usa, Mag Rack, Rainbow Sports Networks, News 12 Networks, and MetroChannels as well as the Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation and Rainbow Network Communications. Rainbow is a fifty-percent partner in Fox Sports Net and has a strategic partnership with MGM (NYSE:MGM), which owns a 20% stake in four of Rainbow's national networks: AMC, WE: Women's Entertainment, Bravo and IFC.
ExtendMedia is an award-winning production company focused on creating interactive content for the Internet, television and wireless convergence market. With its team of producers, designers, developers and engineers, ExtendMedia pushes the limits of entertainment to create next generation interactive programming experiences. By collaborating with clients, ExtendMedia manages the integration and delivery of interactive content, extends their clients' brands to a wider audience. Its market leading, high profile partners and investors include Creative Artists Agency and Alliance Atlantis, to name a few. Entertainment, broadcast, cable and telecommunications clients like PBS, HBO, Showtime Networks, AMC, Mag Rack and Cablevision depend on ExtendMedia for their emerging interactive needs. Founded in 1991 by President and Chief Executive Officer, Keith Kocho, ExtendMedia is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. For more information, visit www.extend.com.
With over 75% market share, Los Angeles-based GoldPocket Interactive (www.goldpocket.com) is the leading provider of two-way interactive television programming for set-top boxes, PCs, and wireless devices. The privately held company's technologies and tools automate iTV content production and distribution to reduce costs and create greater value for television producers, networks, advertisers, and cable and satellite operators.
The world's only two-way interactive network, GoldPocket's EventMatrixTM leverages a proprietary real-time processing engine to enable television viewers to interact directly with each other, competing for a spot on a live leaderboard and instantaneously viewing audience-wide results. GoldPocket has produced more than 3,000 hours of iTV programming for major broadcast and cable networks including CBS, Sony, The WB, Game Show Network, TBS Superstation, FremantleMedia, Comedy Central, Discovery Networks, Cinemax, and Bravo.