• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, November 14, 2014

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. At least it is for Rajeev Raman the CEO of 1Mainstream,  the digital platform that helps facilitate linear and on-demand content to connected devices. Like Macy’s or Target, it's open extra hours during this holiday season, working to fill orders.

Last week CBS launched its live  digital news network, CBSN and turned to 1Mainstream to get it up and running on device platforms like  Amazon Fire TV.

"Rapid, widespread distribution to consumers with connected TV devices has been a critical part of our launch strategy,” a press release quoted Bill Martens, the vice president of CBSNews.com, a quote Raman likes, particularly for one word.

“The bottom line is that word--'rapid’ is right,” Raman said. CBS and 1Mainstream turned around CBSN in a hurry. “We did it in less than four weeks, from standing still to activation,” he said. CBS, obviously, was working on the idea for longer than that, but the real nuts and bolts of it came together quickly.   

At launch, CBSN was available on CBSNews.com and its mobile Website and ond Amazon Fire TV, Roku players and Roku TV devices and more, as well as the newly launched CBS News app for Windows 8/8.1 and Windows Phone 8/8.1 available through the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store. CBS said it expected to be on the CBS News app for Android and on other platforms before the end of the year.

It’s the end of the year detail that Raman underscores. “This is our Black Friday,” he said. Raman predicts, with the knowledge a vendor would have, that many more digital channels will be launched in just the next few weeks using 1Mainstream to do it, for the simple fact that this is the season, and this is the year that Amazon or Chromecast or Apple or Roku will be able to make news--and sell units--by adding high-profile content providers, like CBS.  

Of course, Raman is a pretty earnest cheerleader. The company’s helped everybody from BSkyB  (now one of its investors), to the Atlantic Athletic Conference get going on mobile and OTT spaces. Unlike other companies in the space, from the start 1Mainstream has concentrated on bringing digital distribution ability to connected devices and OTT units rather than laptops, sensing where the market was going.

Raman the former head of product at Roku, and 1Mainstream’s corporate site says Roku maintains a "special place in our hearts.”  

So he sees tipping points everywhere he looks.

“It’s still early days,” he says about OTT. And busy ones.