A group of YouTube creators have filed an amicus brief in the ongoing legal battle between Google and Viacom voicing their support for the site’s value as it currently operates and arguing that to make YouTube responsible for content posted site could destroy what’s been built. Read more »
In a case that is increasingly starting to look like a battle between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, eBay, Facebook, IAC and Yahoo an amicus brief in support of YouTube in its case against Viacom, arguing that a decision in favor of Viacom could stifle web innovation. Read more »
Today on the Net: more documents are unsealed in the Viacom-YouTube copyright infringement suit, the FCC is seeking more information from Comcast about what its NBC Universal deal will mean for the online video industry, and SeeSaw has launched a premium paid service Read more »
Today on the ‘Net: YouTube’s Hunter walk believes online video is dead, Viacom’s Philippe Dauman discusses alternative subscription models and Hulu is going to make users wait a little bit longer before rolling out its much-anticipated subscription service. Read more »
TV apps — interactive, web-like applications meant to “enhance” the TV viewing experience by supplementing programming content with additional material and activities — are evolving quickly from a novelty feature on some Internet-enabled HDTVs and a few cable systems to a standard capability. Their rise is driven by rapid growth in the number of Internet-connected devices in consumers’ living rooms, growing consumer familiarity with mobile apps and strategic competitive forces that influence video service providers. In this report, we look at the market dynamics, key players, and provide forecasts for the market, including network-connected televisions, embedded app marketplaces, app downloads, paid TV apps, and revenue from the sale of paid apps to consumers, which will grow from $10 million in 2010 to $1.9 billion by 2015. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A group of Hollywood studios, including Walt Disney, NBC Universal and Warner Bros., have thrown their support behind Viacom in its lawsuit against YouTube, filing an amicus brief arguing against the video sharing site’s defense in the long-running copyright infringement case. Read more »
Viacom vs. YouTube Is a Microcosm of the Entertainment Industry; even as thousands of artists and labels are embracing the internet, the top management at the big labels are behind laws that could give their companies the power to shut down any tech firm that attempts […] Read more »
What’s better than seeing your web-produced video on TV? Getting (gasp!) paid for it. Enter Atom.com‘s “World Famous Cash-Money Internet Comedy Tournament,” a weekly ongoing competition that will recognize highly trafficked and/or editor-selected comedy shorts with multiplatform distribution and, just like the name says, cash-money dollars. […] Read more »
After two years of silence about its business, Hulu has finally issued some details about its financials, including some major revenue numbers and — surprise — profitability. For those who missed it, Hulu told the world last night that it generated more than $100 million in […] Read more »
The worldwide online market for digital goods will grow amid a state of continuous disruption across all forms of content markets. Fueled by an ever-growing user base, migration from physical formats to digital distribution, and a proliferation of new connected devices, the overall market for digital goods will grow to $36 billion by 2014, up from $16.7 billion in 2009. This report examines the state of paid content and the various monetization and payment models across each of the various digital goods markets. The report examines key players and market dynamics in the film and video, newspaper, online game, music and social networks space relative to their paid content strategies, and includes a revenue forecast of each of these segments relative to the overall paid content market. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Spike TV and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) just launched Ultimatefighter.com, a site that features every single episode of the last 10 seasons of The Ultimate Fighter. It offers fans the option of watching just the fights without any of the trash talking, and each and […] Read more »
Let’s say it’s 2005 and online video is in its infancy. If you’re a Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, how much would it cost to start up and run a video sharing site with the hopes of flipping it for more than $1.6 billion? […] Read more »
Viacom Beats Q4 Estimates; CEO Philippe Dauman, coming off a 4 percent decline in domestic advertising sales in the fourth quarter, said he expects the ad climate to improve in the first quarter. (Multichannel News) Adobe’s Flash 10.1 Coming to Smart Phones; the latest version of […] Read more »
Viacom has been allowed to withdraw some 250 of the more than 60,000 video clips it’s suing YouTube over for copyright infringement, including around 100 that were uploaded to YouTube by Viacom employees or agents, reports MediaPost based on a recently released court filing. The move […] Read more »
I’ll say this for being a Time Warner Cable subscriber — for the second year in a row, it’s brought a little extra drama to the holiday season. Last New Year’s Eve, I was prepared to cut the cord on my cable because Time Warner nearly […] Read more »
Despite a recent study that concluded Redbox’s low-cost DVD rentals are destroying the entertainment industry, Paramount Home Entertainment has extended its trial period with the DVD rental kiosk company. With the extension, Paramount — a division of Viacom — has agreed to make new release titles […] Read more »
Viacom Lawyer Compares Suing File Sharers to Terrorism; general counsel Michael Fricklas admits that suing end users for online copyright infringement is “expensive, and it’s painful, and it feels like bullying.” (Ars Technica) Kyte Opens New Offices in UK, Germany; white-label video management company makes a […] Read more »
Over the past three years, the Internet has become a major secondary distribution platform for free-to-air broadcast programming. Whether through network programmers’ own sites, such as ABC.com, or through aggregators like Hulu and TV.com, ad-supported broadcast programming today is generally available online shortly after its initial airing at no cost to the user. However, programming such as ESPN, TNT and the Discovery Channel, which originates on pay-TV platforms (i.e. cable, satellite and telco TV services) has been a different story.
Cable system operators and other multichannel video program distributors (MVPDs) are loathe to see the programming for which they are charging subscribers hefty monthly fees made available “over-the-top” without a subscription. Over time, they fear, consumers would be tempted to drop their expensive cable service if they could access their favorite programs online.
Cable networks, for their part, collect hefty fees from MVPDs for the right to retransmit their programming, from a few cents per subscriber per month, to as much as $3.75 per subscriber per month, for the most popular channels like Disney’s ESPN. In aggregate, cable networks collect about $25 billion per year in “affiliate fees” from MVPDs, about the same amount as they generate collectively from advertising sales.
As a result, much of the original programming on pay-TV networks is not currently available online, and that which is often doesn’t appear until well after its original air date. The popularity of portals like Hulu (not to mention illegal sources of TV content), however, has accustomed consumers to expect access to their favorite shows online, putting pressure on the industry to respond. Network programmers and marketers, meanwhile, are also anxious to extend their programming franchises by tapping the broad, online audience.
TV Everywhere, which aims to make subscription programming available online exclusively to current pay-TV subscribers, represents an effort to square that circle. In this report, we look at the players, potential costs, and emerging opportunities of these efforts. Read more »
In the ongoing back and forth of Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube/Google, evidence may have been uncovered that shows YouTube employees were among those who uploaded unauthorized copyrighted content to the site, according to CNET. In addition, internal emails show that YouTube managers were aware […] Read more »
Joost Removed Volpi as Chairman; brouhaha gets more interesting as Joost says it “is conducting an investigation into Mr. Volpi’s actions during his tenure as CEO and as chairman.” WSJ Digits blog) Viacom Aggressively Takes Down Kanye Clips; network playing whack-a-mole with controversial MTV Video Awards […] Read more »
The term “digital home” has been tossed around for a number of years with few indications of how big the market actually is. Small startup companies and potentially-disruptive technologies are regularly identified as the key players in what was, in 2008, a $553 billion U.S. market. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Alcatel-Lucent Acquires Velocix; terms of the deal not disclosed, according to Dan Rayburn, the company was acquired for its technology and not its revenue. (The Business of Online Video) Viacom Q2 Profit Drops 32 percent; ad revenue still down for cable nets (though it picked up […] Read more »
