In Demand

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For the song by Texas, see In Demand (song).
In Demand
Ownership
OwneriN DEMAND L.L.C.
(33.3% Comcast,
33.3% Cox Communications,
33.3% Charter)

In Demand (semi-capitalized as a trademark as iN DEMAND) is an American cable television service which provides video on demand services, including pay-per-view.[1] Comcast, Cox Communications, and Charter (with former independent companies Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks) jointly own iN DEMAND.[2]

History

Logo of US's Viewer's Choice, which preceded iN DEMAND. Many different color schemes were used; the 3D version was used 1992-2000.

iN DEMAND was launched on November 27, 1985 with one channel of pay-per-view content, as Viewer's Choice (unrelated to Canada's Viewers Choice). Viewer's Choice continued to expand in the 1990s as it acquired other pay-per-view systems, along with cable companies deciding to outsource their pay-per-view systems rather than maintain them internally.[1]

On January 1, 2000, the service changed the name and on-air look to iN DEMAND.[3] The first program upon relaunch was Rave Un2 the Year 2000, a New Year's Eve concert performed by Prince, which was taped a couple weeks prior. Traditional analog service was eventually discontinued, and it is currently an all-digital service.

In addition to Hollywood films and a limited selection of adult films, along with live and recorded concert programming, the service mainly distributes ring sports through pay-per-view, including the events of the UFC, WWE and TNA Wrestling, boxing events through HBO Boxing and Showtime Boxing, and independent circuits such as those with lucha libre. It also distributes out-of-market sports packages such as MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, MLS Direct Kick, NHL Center Ice where provided (and formerly distributed ESPN Full Court/ESPN GamePlan until they were brought in-house in 2015 as ESPN College Extra), along with Too Much for TV, a service which features 'uncensored' content from the shows of American Television Distribution and NBCUniversal Television Distribution.[4] It was the former distributor of Howard Stern's Howard TV component of his self-titled Sirius XM radio show until 2013.[5]

Since this network's first inception, the first main Viewer's Choice/iN DEMAND channel (usually labeled as 'IN1' or 'PPV1' since 2000), signs off weekday mornings from 8AM to 11AM (Eastern Time) to feed promotions of upcoming movies and events of the next month to its headend affiliates. These are now sent digitally, though the channels continue to maintain routine maintenance periods in these low-purchased timeslots one or two days per month.

Former iN DEMAND ident used until 2014. This was the latest variant.

In 2010, iN DEMAND began providing a free movies on demand service, Vutopia, offered on Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. The service offered uncut older movies organized in themes. It was closed down on June 1, 2015.

As of early 2012, as cable providers use more channel bandwidth for high-definition, video-on-demand and broadband services which do not require starting films at several intervals on several channels, providers such as Charter, Comcast/Xfinity and Time Warner Cable have removed most of iN DEMAND's linear channels - beyond 1-3 standard-definition and one high-definition channel for mostly event programming - from their channel lineups, though the service offers up to 31 standard definition and 19 high definition channels, many of which are used internally within cable companies to distribute content to their VOD servers.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Who is iNDemand".
  2. ^ "Awards and history".
  3. ^ "Viewer's Choice to Become in Demand PPV Cable Brand to Roll Out At Dawn of New Millennium". Business Wire. 1999-09-13. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
  4. ^ "Too Much for TV".
  5. ^ "Howard Stern TV".
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