Sunflower Broadband’s rapid implementation and achievements in on-demand television advertising have led to industry recognition at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ Cable-Tec Expo 2007 in Orlando, Fla.

The Lawrence-based independent cable television operator broke new ground in advertising in June 2006 when it launched the world’s first dynamic advertising insertion process, allowing advertisers more tailored targeting options.

Since then, Sunflower’s adoption of next-generation advertising technology has dramatically increased the company’s local ad revenues and client base, while selling out the entire ad inventory for some video-on-demand (VOD) content categories.

In honor of this breakthrough, Patrick Knorr, Sunflower’s general manager, was named winner of CED Magazine’s Pacesetter Award in the on-demand advertising category. Stephen Schneider, Sunflower’s director of technical operations, accepted the award on Knorr’s behalf from SeaChange International’s Terri Swartz on Thursday.

“Patrick has been an agent of change and opportunity thanks to his aggressive investigation of, and commitment to, new technologies,” said Dolph C. Simons Jr., chairman of The World Company, which owns Sunflower and the Journal-World. “Clearly, he’s broken new ground in advertising before anyone else in the television industry, and we’re extremely proud of his leadership.”

Today, most advertising in VOD is produced directly into VOD programming and tied to a specific piece of content for its entire run, which ultimately requires advertisers to submit generic copy that can run for several weeks. SeaChange AdPulse, however, enables insertion of ads into VOD content at the edge, when the content is played.

CED’s Pacesetter Awards recognize individuals at cable and other broadband service providers who have taken leading positions or innovative first steps with advanced services, applications and technologies.

Sunflower Broadband serves 31,000 subscribers in Lawrence and several other communities in northeast Kansas, providing cable-television programming and advanced video, data and voice services.