Tribune Media Services (TMS) announced today that TMS entertainment metadata will help power the next-generation entertainment platform from Virgin Media, the United Kingdom’s leading entertainment and communications company.

Virgin Media selected TMS as it launches Virgin Media TV to customers across the U.K.  Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo features an advanced user interface enabling viewers to combine the live TV schedule with catch-up TV, a huge library of on-demand programming and popular web-based applications alongside a market-leading personal video recorder. 

TMS will provide Virgin Media with rich, deep and robust entertainment content including linear TV schedules, program and video-on-demand metadata, celebrity metadata and images.  The agreement also includes TMS TV Showcards which offer show synopses, logos, cast ensemble and cast-in-character photos plus award histories.  TMS Unique IDs serve as the data taxonomy which ties all the information together allowing easy search and discovery of related content across all programming sources and consumer devices. 

“We are very excited to support the launch of the innovative user experience to be offered by Virgin Media,” said Ken Carter, TMS Vice President and Managing Director, International. “They appreciate that to provide the ultimate entertainment search and discovery experience, quality entertainment metadata and images are essential. This is an important validation of TMS’ continued expansion into international markets.”  

Ian Mecklenburgh, director of consumer platforms, at Virgin Media added, “For the first time, UK viewers are enjoying a truly personalised viewing experience and getting the most out of great online, on demand  and live TV content, all in one place.  We’re really excited to bring our customers what is just the first of successive generations of transformational digital entertainment services and our agreement with TMS will help them find exactly what they want and discover even more.” 

TMS metadata powers the leading television and movie guide products which reach millions of consumers in 40 countries through clients including Microsoft, Google, TiVo, Comcast, Multichoice, IMDb and Zon Multimedia.