Content Deals

RFD-TV to run on Verizon FiOS

Dan O'Shea — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:03:33 -0400

RFD-TV, an eight-year-old TV network focused on rural America that already reaches about 32 million homes, has signed a multi-year distribution agreement with Verizon to run over the telco's FiOS network on a nationwide basis. FiOS can already contribute another 1.2 million or so homes served to the RFD-TV cause, but RFD-TV official also likely had an eye on the 6.5 million homes that the FiOS network passes.

For more:
- see this coverage at Multichannel News

Related articles:
Verizon cleared the 1.2 million TV customer mark earlier this year Verizon report
Verizon and AT&T both boosted their content offerings late last year Verizon report

NAB: Will online TV movement hurt IPTV?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:59:40 -0400

The National Association of Broadcasters trade show last week in Las Vegas appeared from some press coverage to be more of a telco IPTV meet-up. While there was plenty of positive chatter, there was also some caution. One bit of caution had to do with the growing trend of TV programming moving online--and being viewed online during prime TV viewing hours. Online video aggregation company Veoh Networks said it is seeing that trend, but even a firm from the telecom world, Motorola, noted the increasing impact that online video viewing could have on telcos' IPTV hopes. Of particular threat is the increasing amount of free TV content online from TV broadcasters themselves.

For more:
- read this story in Light Reading

Related articles:
- NAB was a place for telcos to work on content relationships. NAB report
- Content deals blooming everywhere. IPTV content report

NAB: Telcos vie for closer content ties

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:59:50 -0400

The National Association of Broadcasters trade show has long been a party the telecom industry has been invited to attend, but probably one at which many service providers--at least the telcos--did not feel comfortable. They were the outsiders, the kids who had new clothes that did not quite fit right, or fit their own style. But, this week at the NAB in Las Vegas, telcos are looking like they belong. Executives from AT&T and Verizon Communications are talking about wanting to get closer to the content community, and now, increasingly they have large TV customer bases in hand to back up their intentions and win over new friends.

In the early days of IPTV, telcos had a hard time getting premium content and decent prices from broadcasters and programmers because they had so few customers. The Hollywood types always said they wanted to work with telcos, and that they believed the additional distribution channel would help them, but the kind words probably were rarely accompanied by pricing breaks that would have helped telcos get their feet on the ground. Those days are fading.

For more:
- Check out this NAB coverage at Telephony

Starz adapts Vongo for carrier networks

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:59:30 -0400

Cable TV programmer Starz Entertainment has launched a video-on-demand service that also includes a live stream of the original Starz channel, packaged for telco and cable TV company broadband services, according to Light Reading's Cable Digital News. The Starz Play service was adapted from Starz' Vongo online VoD service, which it launched two years ago. Starz has said nothing to indicate that Vongo is not panning out, but could direct-to-consumer VoD services like Vongo prove to be a fad? Maybe programmers will fall back to distributors like cable firms and now telcos as they prove their ability to support programmers' ambitions.

For more:
- read this article at Light Reading's Cable Digital News

Orange Tastes HBO, Warner

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:59:40 -0400

Warner Bros. Intl. TV and HBO have cut an exclusive multi-year deal to supply content to France Telecom Orange's new premium pay TV service, Orange Cinema Service. The deal is expected to be one of many for Orange, a cable, IPTV and mobile TV operator in France as it builds exclusive content to lure subscribers in and fill its six movie/TV series channels.

Orange has acquired rights to all of WB's current and upcoming films, including hits such as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and "I Am Legend." The HBO deal is the company's first in France and is different from HBO's original model of trying to sell programming on an a la carte basis. Orange boasts one of Europe's biggest roll-outs in mobile TV and IPTV. It has 1.2 million IPTV clients, and some 500,000 mobile TV consumers. Orange Cinema Services will be offered on these platforms, on a subscription and video-on-demand basis.

For more:
- Read the Variety story

Related articles:
French challenge Microsoft
Top European IPTV drivers

YouTube API enables free web hosting for all

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:40 -0400

YouTube has launched a powerful API that enables publishers to broadcast video content using their own skin and specifications direct from their own web sites--free. The co-branded API is being pitched at businesses, but also threatens the many video providers that service the custom-player market.

The no-cost service enables publishers and enterprises to effectively outsource the pain of video delivery to Google's robust video delivery infrastructure and will be a boon to firms seeking to deploy video for training and in-house comms. Externally it offers enterprises a branded player with a powerful set of recommendation and other features and potentially enormous distribution to promote and inform.

The offer of what is, in practice, free video hosting is possibly very disruptive to other professional video-hosting platforms such as Move, Brightcove and Yahoo's Maven Networks. While Google says it is not a white label exercise, in reality the co-branded API takes away both the complexity and cost of video delivery.

The API represents a major evolution for the user-generated site. It moves YouTube from a (hugely popular) destination platform to being a highly advanced video publishing infrastructure available to business and publishers alike.

New features in the API include the ability to add and edit user and video metadata as well as localized feeds for the 18 international markets YouTube supports.The new API comes as YouTube is testing HD delivery and as it promises to provide a real-time player later this year. To see the H.264 encoded clip in action compare these low- and high-quality versions of Tillman the skateboarding dog!

For more:
- YouTube Everywhere Blog
- YouTube pitches for business Article

Related articles:
YouTube tests HD Article
YouTube extends to mobile Article
Stage6 video portal closes Article

Content deals everywhere

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:59:10 -0500

The device space may be white hot, but there is similar feverish collaboration under way among the content players, with numerous media brands announcing distribution and alliance deals for the new year. Some are simple content swaps such as the New York Times and CNBC deal, others are platform deals such as Sony's decision to drive a number of ad-supported channels through Google's, YouTube.

Also significant was the Microsoft announcement of a partnership to make available ABC Disney and MGM programming through its Xbox 360 box. The programs will be available in both standard and high definition.

Samsung also announced a deal to enable Samsung P2 portable video users to download video content from Starz's Vongo service for mobile viewing.

But it was the decision of video aggregator Veoh to quietly integrate content from the News Corp/NBC video portal Hulu, which probably was most significant.

Hulu enables video to be embedded in any site and the move by Veoh to integrate Hulu content without any deal marks a further break down of the proprietary distribution model which has characterized the media industry for 50 years. The separation of distribution from creation has been under way for some time through RSS feeds and embedded media, but the move by Veoh will challenge traditional media companies like News and NBC who have in past vigorously defended their right to determine who will carry their content.

For More:
- The end of Exclusivity NewTeeVee Essay
- Microsoft to carry Disney and ABC Article
- NYT an CNBC to share content Article
- Samsung to work with Vongo Article

Related articles:
- Babelgum does a raft of content deals Report
- Joost gets Viacom content Report

Time Warner launches B2B IPTV

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:59:30 -0400

Time Warner Cable is getting into IPTV. The nation's second-largest cable TV concern is launching a video service for its business customers using IPTV over broadband delivered via the cable infrastructure.

BusinessLink.tv will deliver news and information channels to subscribers' computers, starting with TWC's 1.4 million subscribers in New York and New Jersey. The channel lineup is said to include NY1 News, CNN, Headline News, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, The Weather Channel and others.

Light Reading notes that TWC did an 18-month IPTV trail with 75 channels in San Diego, but people were cool to watching TV on computers. The model makes a lot more sense as a enterprise play in the heart of the nation's news and investment nexus. Brokers can get rid of those second screens.

For More:
- IPTV News has this
- Light Reading has more details here

Yahoo! plans to put video on Flickr

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:59:50 -0400

Yahoo! is not giving up in the video arena. Comments in the press made by Mike Folgner, general manager of Yahoo's video initiatives, indicate that Yahoo's photo-sharing site Flickr is being groomed for video sharing. The Sunnyvale, Calif., search engine giant is expected to launch its new video strategy by the end of the year.

Yahoo! is reported to have content deals from several record companies, news wires and sports leagues, including the Associated Press, the National Football League and Major League Baseball. The Web conglomerate is aiming to pick up some of the online traffic lining Google's bank account via YouTube.

In comScore rankings for June, Yahoo! ranked third for video streams, with 387 million, or 4.6 percent of all streaming traffic. Google was No. 1 with 21.5 percent, or 1.7 billion hits--all but 1 million of those on YouTube. Fox Interactive was in second with 680 million video streams equating 8.1 percent of traffic. In overall U.S. traffic, Yahoo! sites dominated with more than 133 million visitors compared to second-place Google's 123.6 million.

For more:
- Broadcasting and Cable picked up the Flickr chatter here
- Michael Arrintgon at TechCrunch says he heard about it months ago here
- The comScore streaming results are here

Japanese content community targets YouTube

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 06:59:40 -0400

YouTube is getting backlash from its regionalized launches in June in the form of criticism from content creators in Japan. Even as YouTube parent Google Vice President David Eun was announcing content deals in Tokyo last week, content executives gathered to blast the service for copyright infringement, according to published reports. The Japanese version of YouTube is said to be the most popular of the new regionals, which also include Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.

YouTube has traditionally relied on user-policing and take-down notices to prevent copyright infringement, a strategy that landed the company in court with Viacom, owner of all of those Comedy Central clips. A class action involving several European sports leagues is also building against YouTube with the recent inclusion of American helo-journalist Bob Tur, reportedly the first to file against the video-sharing site.

During a scheduling hearing held last month in U.S. District Court in New York, Google attorneys said digital fingerprinting would be implemented in September. The technology could be used to flag and reject copyright clips, but its efficacy is uncertain. The Japanese coalition is skeptical, and is pressing for tighter controls now.

For more:
- Robert Andrews covers the conflict at Forbes.com here
- Adario Strange of Wired's Epicenter blog suggests Japan enjoys the free advertising here
- Viacom vs. YouTube is succinctly explained in a clip from The Daily Show uploaded on YouTube here

Related Articles:
YouTube gets an earful Report
Google: $200 million in escrow for YouTube suits Report