BT announced this week it is spinning off a new venture, Real Time Content, to capitalize on technology it developed that enables real-time customization of video content for personalized advertising and content delivery.

The spinoff is the latest in BT’s External Venturing program and is handled in conjunction with New Venture Partners LLC, its corporate venturing firm.

RTC has developed what BT calls an adaptive media platform, which essentially divides content into small segments, each of which as metadata associated with it, said David Belcher, BT’s Head of External Venturing.

“The underlying platform then automatically plays for you a piece of content stitched together from these elements,” he said.

By combining that capability with user data, a video service provider or advertiser can customize what the user sees in a real-time fashion in a cost-effective way.

For example, Belcher said, a retired person looking at car advertisements would see a very different ad from a 20-year-old man, based on their demographic data. Similarly, a movie trailer would be adapted to show a potential viewer an aspect of that movie that appeals specifically to them, whether it’s car chases, romance or plot. And news shows could be customized to provide a heavier dose of sports, or to summarize the day’s happenings in a briefer time frame, he said.

“With any piece of media, it can flex the message according to what it knows about me real time for millions of users,” Belcher said. “Each video stream to be tailored in real time to me. This is a complete shift from what industry does today.”

BT is making the spinoff now because it believes that not only is RTC’s technology ready for the market but the market is ready for this technology, Belcher added.

“With all the user-generated content and video advertising on the Internet, we thought this would be a good time to bring it out,” he said.

The product has special appeal in the IPTV realm because it enables those service providers to take advantage of the interactive nature of their service, with its two-way broadband connection.

“That’s where the research started, because we are rolling out IPTV and we wanted to offer things like personalized news,” Belcher said. “The U.K. video market is very dominated by satellite broadcast, so using the up-channel for broadband and being able to interact with user is a differentiator for IPTV but if you are not allowing content on the other end to adjust to who’s watching, it’s not much of a differentiator.”

The product is already in trials with some leading label brands, who have not chosen to go public as yet.