-
No Surprise, Ivi is Shut Down
Broadcasters got a win this week as a U.S. District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction against Ivi, requiring the service be shut down. The decision comes as little surprise, as Ivi's claim to being a cable system, and therefore entitled to a compulsory license to rebroadcast TV networks, seemed specious from the start. Though Ivi vows to appeal the decision, casting itself as consumers' savior, there's little reason to believe we'll see Ivi - at least in its current form - back any time soon. Moral here: just because the Internet makes it possible to rebroadcast networks, that still doesn't make it legal.
Categories: Broadcasters, Regulation
Topics: CBS, Cox, Disney, FOX, Ivi, MLB, NBC, PBS, WPIX
-
VideoNuze Report Podcast #89 - Feb. 25, 2011
I'm pleased to present the 89th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for February 25, 2011.
In this week's podcast, Harold Geller, the SVP of Cross-Industry Workflow at the 4As (American Association of Advertising Agencies) joins me, sitting in for Daisy Whitney. Harold and I discuss the busy week online video platforms have had, including Ooyala's deal with Yahoo! Japan, thePlatform's with Telstra's BigPond TV, Brightcove's integration with LG's Smart TVs, and VBrick's acquisition of Fliqz.
One of the takeaways we see from this activity is that online video platforms and video delivery to connected TVs (and other devices) are starting to converge. Harold also notes a couple of recent conversations he's had which further suggest that OVPs and online video advertising players will be playing a greater role in ad insertion in video-on-demand offered by traditional pay-TV operators. That would be a pretty interesting new twist in the VOD story. More on this next week.
Click here to listen to the podcast (14 minutes, 55 seconds)
Click here for previous podcasts
The VideoNuze Report is available in iTunes...subscribe today!
Categories: Podcasts, Technology
Topics: BigPond TV, Brightcove, Fliqz, LG, Ooyala, Telstra, thePlatform, VBrick, Yahoo! Japan
-
thePlatform Powering Telstra's BigPond TV Multi-Screen Rollout
In another sign of how online video platforms (OVPs) are expanding the scope of their management and publishing services, this morning thePlatform is announcing a multi-year deal to power the big Australian telco Telstra's multi-screen BigPond TV service for TVs, set-top boxes and the web. The
announcement follows news earlier this week that Ooyala will be supporting Yahoo! Japan's multi-screen video efforts and that Brightcove has integrated with LG connected Smart TVs for direct publishing. Marty Roberts, thePlatform's VP of Sales and Marketing caught me up on the BigPond details yesterday.
The central component of BigPond TV, which Telstra announced last June, is what the company calls the "T-Box," a hybrid IP set-top box from Netgem that handles both linear channels and on-demand video. Telstra is promoting the T-Box in its bundles and it is meant to replace traditional set-tops over time. Importantly, Telstra doesn't impose any consumption caps for online video viewing via the Telstra broadband ISP. In addition to the T-Box, Telstra is also delivering the full BigPond TV service to connected TV and Blu-ray players from LG and Samsung. Telstra's goal is to have content selection on the T-Box, connected devices and online be completely synched up. For now mobile options, like an iPad or Android app aren't available, but they'll be coming soon.
Categories: Devices, International, Technology, Telcos
Topics: Alcatel-Lucent, BigPond TV, Cisco, Netgem, SeaChange, Telstra, thePlatform
-
Break Media Introduces 5 New Originals
Break Media is introducing 5 new web series today, continuing its investment in original content production. The first new series rolling out is "For the Win," a weekly how-to series focused on helping men "win at life," which will run on Break's "Made Man" lifestyle site. The topic is defined expansively in keeping with Break's target audience; today's episode is "Win a Fight With One Punch." For the Win will also be distributed on YouTube and through the Break Media Network.
The other series, which will debut in the spring - and the Break sites they'll reside on - include "Awesome America" (Break), an offbeat travelogue show, "Thinking Out Loud" (Screen Junkies), a comedic take on celebrity interviews, "MMAashed Potato" (Cage Potato), weekly re-caps of MMA highlights and "FAQ U" (Game Front), a review show for popular games.
Categories: Indie Video
Topics: Break Media, YouTube
-
Brightcove Integrates With LG Electronics Smart TVs
Brightcove is announcing a partnership this morning with LG Electronics that will allow its publishing customers to deliver content directly to LG NetCast Smart
TVs. The deal continues the trend around delivering high-quality video content to connected devices, which is becoming a significant differentiator for consumer electronics companies.
As part of the partnership, Brightcove said it will release a set of tools and support services later this year, including a reference app that will serve as a starting point for customers to deliver content to LG Smart TVs. Initiatives like these, which continue to legitimize connected TVs as a bona fide online video viewing platform, are a boon to consumers who are able to access a broader range of content directly on their TVs than what has traditionally been offered by their pay-TV provider.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).Categories: Devices, Technology
Topics: Brightcove, LG
-
With New CBS Deal, Netflix Reminds Amazon (and Hulu) Who's King of the Streaming Jungle
As if on cue, Netflix announced a new streaming deal with CBS this morning, just hours after Amazon took the wraps off its own new streaming feature for Prime users. Under the 2-year deal, Netflix will get episodes from classic
series like "Star Trek," "Frasier," "Cheers," "Twin Peaks," "Hawaii Five-O," "The Twilight Zone," and others. It will also include certain episodes from current shows like "Medium" and "Flashpoint." The companies had a previous streaming deal signed in late 2008 that covered series like "NCIS," "CSI" and "Numbers" which appears to have expired.
The new CBS agreement sends a strong message to Amazon that when it comes to premium content, Netflix is still king of the streaming jungle. If Amazon wants to compete title-for-title, it is going to have to spend aggressively for content. As I pointed out earlier today, Amazon is only likely to do this if it sees meaningful increases in Prime membership due to the new streaming feature, which I believe is unlikely.
Categories: Aggregators, Broadcasters
Topics: ABC, Amazon, CBS, Hulu, NBCU, Netflix
-
Amazon Prime Instant Streaming Launches; Not a Netflix-Killer (Yet Anyway)
Amazon is announcing this morning that it has added streaming access to 5,000 movies and TV shows to the package of benefits its "Prime" members get, for no extra charge as part of their $79/year subscription. Amazon is offering a one month free trial to Prime to let new users test it out. The move had been widely rumored and of course the first company that comes to mind as being in the cross-hairs of Prime's streaming is Netflix. Those competitive concerns are legitimate, but for now, Prime isn't close to being a Netflix-killer.
The big Achilles heel of Prime is content selection. Though 5,000 titles sounds like a lot, it won't take long for experienced Netflix users tempted by a switch to Prime to recognize that most of these titles are already available on Netflix streaming as well. I did a quick comparison of 20 randomly-selected titles on Prime and found that with the exception of a few BBC Shakespeare titles and certain episodes of the PBS series "American Experience," everything on Prime is already available on Netflix streaming. In fact, for now Prime relies heavily on British programming and PBS. Though both provide quality productions, they are far from mainstream popularity in the U.S.
Categories: Aggregators
Topics: ABC, Amazon, Apple, EPIX, NBC, Netflix, Starz
-
Ooyala Lands Yahoo! Japan In Big Customer Win
Online video platform Ooyala is announcing this morning a big customer win, with Yahoo! Japan. Under the multi-year deal, Yahoo! Japan will standardize on Ooyala across all of its hundreds of sites and will also sell and support the platform to its ecosystem and to the broader Japanese Internet market. Yahoo! Japan is majority-owned by Softbank and is affiliated with Yahoo!.
The deal is significant to Ooyala because of the size of the Japanese Internet market and the fact that Yahoo! Japan, with 80 million monthly unique visitors, is the dominant player. Ooyala's CEO Jay Fulcher brought me up to speed on the deal last week.
Though there wasn't a formal RFP, Jay said that Yahoo! Japan stress-tested the Ooyala platform with millions of streams. Jay believes that while robust content management and publishing capabilities are now table stakes in big deals like these, it was Ooyala's analytics and monetization tools that were the differentiators. Yahoo! Japan is looking to take insight around consumer behavior and use it to drive monetization strategy across PCs, mobile devices and connected TVs.
Categories: International, Technology
Topics: Ooyala, Yahoo! Japan
VideoNuze Posts
Connect with VideoNuze
Exclusive News Roundup
- YouTube CEO Says Revenue From Its TikTok-Like Shorts Videos Is at Parity With Core YouTube in U.S., Other Countries Variety
- Netflix says its ad tier now has 94 million monthly active users CNBC
- Xumo Founder Launches Fairground, Startup Focused Exclusively on AI-Generated TV Series Variety
- YouTube introduces an interactive product feed for shoppable TV ads TechCrunch
- Warner’s Streaming Service Has New Name: Its Old One. Meet ‘HBO Max.’ WSJ
- YouTube Expands Deal With NFL, Scores Global Rights to Week One Brazil Game The Hollywood Reporter
