BBC Worldwide teams up with ROK Player

ROK Player has signed an innovative licensing deal with BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, to release a selection of its major properties for full-length full-screen play on mobile phones.
It's the first time BBC Worldwide has licensed full-length video content for use on mobile phones.
The cult BBC classics 'Doctor Who' and 'Red Dwarf' are a massive enhancement to ROK's portfolio which already includes a wide range of music from the Ministry of Sound, Sony/BMG, and Eagle Records (Dr. Dre and Pink Floyd music videos) and film content including Aardman Studios features (Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts), 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'SpongeBob Square Pants'.
The initial BBC offering includes the classic Doctor Who special 'The Five Doctors' and three episodes from Red Dwarf; 'Marooned' (Series III), 'Quarantine' (Series V) and 'Cassandra' (Series VIII).
ROK Player is working with BBC Worldwide to extend its portfolio of classic BBC TV episodes over the coming months.
"BBC Worldwide is always looking for new opportunities, both in the UK and abroad, that allow consumers to enjoy their favourite TV content again and again, while delivering additional revenues to the BBC and to the talent behind the classic programming. The ROK Player meets these demands, delivering high quality full-length episodes to mobile phones on a commercial basis," said Marc Humphrey, Business Development Manager, BBC Worldwide.
ROK Player technology allows multimedia handset users to enjoy full screen entertainment including feature films on their handsets, even without network coverage.
"BBC programmes are among the best in the world and are hugely popular. We want to give fans the opportunity to watch their favourite shows wherever they are. With ROK Player, the mobile phone is now an affordable portable media player," said Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman and CEO of ROK Entertainment.
"We are delivering a high quality solution for consumers with BBC Worldwide as a premium content partner," he continued.
Leading content owners such as film distributors, TV companies, production houses and record labels have previously had no way of packaging content appropriately for the mobile. ROK Player, with its full-screen playback of films, television shows and music videos means that the mobile handset has been turned into a recorded media player.
ROK Entertainment Group, the creators of ROK Player, is predicting that this mobile content platform market will be worth £100m a year within three years, in the UK alone.
The ROK Player is carried on patent-pending Digital Video Chip technology that is stored, along with the audio-visual content, on the phone's multi-media memory card and works with a wide range of phones that are multi-media card compatible.
(GB)