form format not produced in the US.

AOL Inc. has bought the Israeli format “Connected”, produced by Koda Communications Ltd., for production and broadcasting in the US. This is the first time that AOL has purchased a long-form format that is not produced in the US.

Connected was broadcast on cable by Hot Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE:HOT.B1) and has been sold to broadcasters in 22 countries, including Denmark, Finland, France, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, Russia, and Spain.

AOL has an Israeli development center with 80 employees.

“In the past eight years, we’ve built television, a kind a cable network for all intents and purposes,” said AOL On Network VP global video strategy Tal Simantov. “We’ve built a cable network with 15 channels and almost one million movies, and we’re expanding the short format from all US broadcasters. The content is distributed among 2,000 AOL sites, which have more than one billion viewers a month.”

In the past two years, AOL has been integrating smart television with content for viewing on Samsung Tocco, Sony Bravia, Xbox, and iOS and Android smartphones.