The state of California and a group of researchers from Berkeley Labs, UC San Diego, and Scripps Institution for Oceanography, plan to work with Earth Networks on a green house gas monitoring network in the state. Read more »
With digital revenues across E.W. Scripps’ newspaper and television divisions sometimes offering an incomplete picture, the company has deci… Read more at paidContent »
When Hurricane Irene hit the East Coast last week, several newspapers took down their paywalls for all weather-related coverage. But when do… Read more at paidContent »
When is an iPad not an iPad? When it’s a TV screen. Nowadays, programmers need to adapt to the new world of distribution not by creating more windows, rights and licenses, but by embracing a view of digital distribution across a broad ecosystem of devices. Read more »
The company behind the sometimes-annoying WeatherBug app has emerged with a new plan to build what it says will be the world’s largest global sensor network that will track green house gas emissions. AWS Convergence Technologies, now Earth Networks, will invest $25 million into the network. Read more »
Cable channels Food Network and HGTV returned to AT&T U-verse, after it struck a deal with programmer Scripps Networks. For AT&T, which insisted on broad multiplatform rights for Scripps programming, the deal could mean bringing more cooking and home renovation content online and to mobile devices. Read more »
Sorry, AT&T U-verse subscribers — you will no longer have access to The Next Iron Chef or that awesome new Vanilla Ice home renovation show, due to a blackout of Scripps networks. So what’s a U-verse subscriber to do? Maybe watch some kinda similar channels instead. Read more »
A dozen broadcast TV firms, including Fox, NBC and others, have announced a joint venture to introduce mobile digital TV services in the US. The initiative, which is a continuation of work done by an industry group called the Open Mobile Video Coalition, aims to re-use […] Read more »
Sky Putting 3-D Before VOD; despite a promise to add a true pull-VOD service to its TV options in 2010, Sky gave no progress update for the service, but said it would start launch Europe’s first 3-D channel this spring. (paidContent:UK) Ooyala Launches Localized Japanese Platform; […] Read more »
YouTube Profits Coming this Year; Google CEO Eric Schmidt tells the FT he expects YouTube to make it into the black some time in 2010. (Financial Times) Also, YouTube’s deals with Channels 4 and Five are seen as key examples of commercial partnerships that are boosting […] Read more »
Wow, I thought it was tough being a Time Warner Cable customer right now, but that was because I haven’t had the pleasure of forking over monthly payments to Cablevision, whose recent troubles with Scripps Networks make the Fox-TWC drama look like an episode of Sesame […] Read more »
Sony, Samsung Show Off 3-D Products; Sony Electronics unveiled its first 3D-enabled Blu-ray disc players and TV sets during a press conference at CES. (Video Business) Samsung trotted out a wide array of 3-D products, including a 3-D Blu-ray player and several 3-D TVs at CES. […] Read more »
Cable customers in Denver and Los Angeles didn’t have to miss last weekend’s Sugar Bowl after all: Time Warner Cable and News Corp. announced a deal on Friday that allows the cable company to continue to carry the Fox network’s TV channels, after Fox had threatened […] 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 »
Two mild-mannered dudes from Tennessee think they’ve come up with a cool way to add collaboration to the movie-making process. Their site, Rootclip, aims to rev up audience participation by letting users determine where the story goes. It works like this: Rootclip creates a one-minute short […] Read more »
