An assortment of news stories today provide a sense of how established and new players are jockeying for position in the video market, as it migrates from broadcast to on-demand modes and, increasingly, to IP-based distribution.
Mediaweek reports that:
Talks between the broadcast networks and cable operators to bring prime-time entertainment shows to video-on-demand platforms are beginning to take on a more serious tone. There’s a strong chance that some networks could launch on-demand services on some systems as early as next summer and almost certainly by the start of the 2006-07 season.
What’s fueling this new sense of urgency is the broadcasters’ desire to come up with a new revenue stream as the costs of producing scripted shows continue to soar. Meanwhile, cable operators are concerned that if they do not have these deals in place sooner than later, broadcasters will instead look to the Internet as a plausible VOD vehicle (thanks in part to the explosion of broadband penetration).
This use of the Internet by broadcasters is the subject of a piece in IP Media Monitor:
To garner more exposure for new programs and test the viability of online promotion, broadcast networks this season have been selectively making premiere episodes of prime time shows available online. Last week, Google Video streamed UPN’s Everybody Hates Chris, one of the most buzzed-about shows of the new season, from Monday through Thursday, leading up to the show’s second episode last Thursday night.
USA Today adds that:
Google Video director Jennifer Feikin says the online airing was clearly promotional, designed to get people to tune into UPN, but she says the next phase of Google Video will be about offering shows on demand, for a fee. “Let’s say I missed an entire season of a TV show and now would like to catch up. There may be an opportunity for a TV producer to say, ‘Let’s put it on Google, and receive a payment in return.’”
But Staci Kramer at paidContent.org says:
This may be one of Google’s most difficult tasks yet. Instead of just taking the material and making it searchable, Google has to work with the networks which in turn have to work with everyone in the rights chain unless it’s network-produced. Even then, the network has to be sure delivering the material online won’t disrupt affiliate relationships or agreements. CBS Digital president Larry Kramer told B&C it took UPN months to get the permissions set for the Chris Rock show promo with Google.
A story in the New York Times discusses some smaller players in the web-delivered video space, including Open Media Network, Veoh Networks and Blinkx, noting that the latter today unveiled a new function called MyBlinkxTV.
The site is supposed to work much like a standard search engine, prompting users to type words or phrases into a search box. But when the user types in, say, “big wave surfing,” instead of displaying links to Web pages, the site starts rolling a string of video clips most relevant to that topic. Users can fast-forward, rewind, pause the video and click a button to save the channel. When they return to it, the technology refreshes the channel with newer, more relevant clips.
Mitch Shapiro at 4:53 PM|Comments(0)
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