IP Democracy: Execs: We're Sitting on Top of a Web Video Volcano

(Boston, MA) A group of leaders in the IP video world gathered together here yesterday at the CTAM Summit for a panel discussion of broadband video and its prospects. It’s safe to say that all of the panelists believe we’re on the cusp of a big broadband video boom.

Channing Dawson, SVP of Emerging Media for Scripps Networks, which has been aggressive in moving its DIY video content online, put it succinctly: “I think we’re sitting on top of a volcano in video.”

Jeremy Allaire, Chairman and CEO of video publishing pioneer Brightcove said that the consumer appetite for online video keeps getting stronger. “The appetite is growing,” he said, noting that users are increasingly willing to watch longer videos online. “We’ve seen users willing to watch longer pieces of content,” Allaire said. “It’s not just snacking.”

Ron Lamprecht, Vice President of New Media for NBC Universal said that the early patterns of web-delivered video consumption mirror what viewers watch on television. “When you compare the viewing of our content on iTunes, it looks very similar to what we see on TV,” he said, adding that both sets of viewers tend to watch the top 20 TV shows (“The Office,” “Battlestar Gallactica,” etc.) even though “we have 500,000 pieces of content out there.”

The sole cable operator on the panel, Dermot McCormack, SVP of Interactive Advertising and Development for Cablevision Systems, was, not surprisingly, the least enthusiastic about the rise of broadband video. He said that given the growing amount of video material online, some entity needs to step in and help consumers find what they want to watch.

Cable operators are already good at that, so why not rely on the industry to help shape online program choice selections? “There has to be a find mechanism, which is what cable has traditionally done well,” McCormack said. “All the strong points of cable, while unsexy, are the underpinnings of what most people want to see…There’s a need for someone to package all these together.”

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on July 19, 2006 11:07 AM to IP Democracy