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NBC and Time Warner 'Start Over'
Joint venture will let cable company customers watch programs in limited on-demand capacity.
October 25, 2005: 10:02 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - NBC and Time Warner Cable announced a joint venture Monday that will allow cable company customers to catch up on their favorite network programs.

Dubbed "Start Over," the new service will allow Time Warner customers to rewind and watch a show that is already in progress on NBC as well as its other cable networks such as Bravo, CNBC, SCI FI and USA.

The new service, which is comparable to such on-demand technology such as TiVo, has both its drawbacks and benefits, according to a story published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper reported that once the show ends, customers will no longer be able to access the program and customers will not be able to advance past commercials.

Customers of Time Warner Cable will, however, receive the service for free and will not be required to purchase additional hardware, according to the Journal.

The deal is expected to be popular among NBC's different networks as a means of tracking customers' viewing habits, according to the paper, and will ultimately allow the networks to sell advertising more effectively.

"We expect Start Over will help deliver more engage viewers to our advertisers," David Zaslav, the president of NBC Universal Cable, said in a statement released Monday.

The move by NBC would mark the first attempt by a major network to enter the video-on-demand arena, according to the newspaper.

ABC, CBS and NBC have all recently expressed interest in video-on-demand technology as the networks search for ways of bolstering revenues.

Time Warner owns both Time Warner Cable and CNN/Money.

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