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YouTube launches paid live streaming with Willow.tv

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:53:50 +0000

Cricket fans will soon be able to see the India tour of England live on YouTube, for a price: The video hosting site is teaming up with live Cricket specialist Willow.tv for its first foray into subscription live streaming, according to an email Willow.tv sent to its subscribers this week and information made available on Willow.tv’s YouTube channel.

The partnership between the two sites will offer Willow.tv subscribers the ability to watch games of the tournament live on YouTube starting Thursday. New customers can subscribe to a $99 six-month season pass right on YouTube, with payments being facilitated by Google Checkout.

Subscribers will also be able to catch up on previous matches, and non-paying users can watch highlight clips for free. Existing Willow.tv subscribers can get their accounts validated by linking up their YouTube and Willow.tv accounts, and the company promises that YouTube streaming will “further enhance” the quality and reliability of its existing offering. Willow will still offer subscribers the option to watch games on various connected and mobile devices.

Paid subscriptions on YouTube haven’t been officially announced by the site yet, and YouTube PR wasn’t available for comment on the matter. However, this isn’t the first time YouTube has been experimenting with letting people pay for its live streaming offering. The site also streamed a mixed martial arts and kickboxing event called Glory live from Russia at the end of June, which was only available as pay-per view.

YouTube’s competitors Ustream, Justin.tv and Stickam all have been offering PPV for some time now. However, YouTube’s massive user base and its payment platform could make the site an interesting option to sports leagues who want to bypass or complement existing pay TV offerings. We probably won’t see the MLB or NBA embrace these options any time soon, but foreign sports leagues with smaller footprints in the U.S. market could embrace it to cater to expats and international sports fans alike.

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Live Sports Piracy Moves Underground

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 22:30:17 +0000

With the ICC Cricket World Cup officially starting this week, many fans are scouring the web for options to watch the games. Some of them may find less-than-legitimate options online, but chances are, those pirated streams won’t be on any of the big live streaming sites. Willow.tv CEO Vijay Srinivasan said during a phone conversation today that his company is far more concerned about rogue sites that “pop up to make a quick buck” by selling access to pirated streams.

Willow.tv is the exclusive outlet for ICC World Cup matches in the U.S., which the company is broadcasting through its own TV channel on Dish and DirecTV, in addition to its online subscription service. Srinivasan told me that his team has been battling pirate sites ever since it started streaming cricket games online nine years ago, but a lot has changed since then.

Early on, much of the piracy he fought was based on large, U.S.-based live streaming sites. “We were extremely frustrated with these sites,” Srinivasan said. He didn’t single out any company by name, but it’s no secret that many people frequent Justin.tv and Ustream.tv for unlicensed live sports broadcasts. However, all the big players in the live streaming business have since put up measures to combat sports piracy. “They all quickly fell into line,” observed Srinivasan.

A bigger worry for the company now are sites that try to sell services similar to those offered by Willow.tv. Srinivasan said his company has targeted hundreds of rogue sites in recent years, filing a lawsuit in a San Francisco-based federal court last week. That lawsuit specifically targeted close to two dozen sites, as well as ISPs like PRQ, which is run by the Pirate Bay Co-founder Gottfrid Swartholm Warg.

Some of the sites targeted have since ceased operation, but others remain in business, promising access to the tournament for as little as $35. “The sad part is… people will still give them a credit card” even though they know that the sites are illegitimate, said Srinivasan, adding that consumers will often find out the hard way that some sites aren’t equipped to honor their offerings.

As for the big live streaming companies, Srinivasan credits much of their efforts to the fact that other sports leagues have also pressured them to clean up their act. “The good thing was that it wasn’t just us,” he said. However, not everyone feels the live streaming companies are doing enough. The Ultimate Fighting Championship sued Justin.tv in January, alleging that Justin.tv has “turned a blind eye to the massive online piracy occurring on its website.”

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Watch Cricket On iPad, Roku, Boxee & PS3 With Willow.tv

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:57 +0000

The ICC Cricket World Cup kicks off next week, with a warmup match between India and Australia scheduled for Sunday, February 13th and the tournament’s Opening Ceremony a few days later on February 16th. Cricket fans can tune in to all 49 matches, including the championship match streamed on April 2 from Mumbai, on Willow.tv for $129.

This year, Willow.tv subscribers will get an added bonus with new multiplatform video capabilities through which they can access live streams not just on PCs and laptops, but on a wide range of mobile devices and an increasing number of connected TVs and broadband set-top boxes.

Willow.tv is just the latest streaming sports firm to go with a multiplatform strategy, following major sports leagues in the U.S. like Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League in rolling out streaming services on mobile and connected devices. Like those sports, cricket has a rabid fan base; last year’s Indian Premier League streams on YouTube surpassed all expectations, with viewers watching more than 51 million streams during the 45-day tournament.

But unlike followers of the MLB, NBA and NHL, most cricket fans aren’t able to find the matches on cable TV. Willow.tv fills a void by providing high-definition streaming access to matches that viewers wouldn’t otherwise be able to find. And now, due to customer demand, Willow.tv has added video streaming on the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android mobile devices. It is also now available on Roku and Boxee set-top boxes, Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console and Google TV-powered devices from Sony and Logitech. The firm is also hoping to have its streams available on Samsung connected TVs and Blu-ray players before the ICC World Cup matches begin.

Vijay Srinivasan, CEO of Willow.tv, said in a phone interview that the company’s goal is to enable its viewers to watch cricket matches on the device of their choosing, whether it be a PC, a mobile device or especially a connected TV. “People are used to watching video on the TV, and we’re looking to bridge that gap,” he said.

To get on all these platforms, Willow.tv has an in-house development team that has been creating apps for various connected devices. For now, Willow.tv is devoted primarily to extending its own platform to different devices, although Srinivasan said the company has already been contacted by some third parties to use its back end and app expertise for their own live streams. While it has no plans to do so right now, Srinivasan said it could white label and outsourcing those services to other companies that do live streaming.

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Watch Cricket on Willow TV

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:32:48 +0000

Game day in the U.S. usually means a bottle of Bud and football on the television for a few hours. But for Willow TV‘s million registered users across the globe, it means cracking open a Kingfisher, firing up the PC and enjoying literally a day’s worth of Cricket.

Founded in 2003, Willow TV gradually acquired the rights from international cricket boards to stream matches live online. By 2007, through a combination of deals, the site carries 90+ percent of the cricket matches live. It’s registered user base of more than a million people lives predominately in North America, with 25 to 30 percent of the broadband audience outside the continent.

Willow TV provides livestreams of cricket matches on a pay-per-view or subscription basis, with packages starting around $5 up to $200. The company offers multiple bit streams, 700 Kbps and 400 Kbps, and plans to offer a 1MB stream next year as well.

And when fans sit down to watch Willow TV, they make themselves comfortable. According to company co-founder Vijay Srinivasan, on a match day, the average user spends four to five hours on the site, which isn’t that hard to believe once you realize cricket matches go on for eight hours.

Srinivasan says that the company has been profitable pretty much since it started, which may explain why Reliance ADA, the largest media company in India, plunked down $60 to $70 million this month for a 75 percent stake in Willow TV and to expand its operations (how much went to the acquisition and how much is for expansion was not disclosed).

Reliance wants to expand Willow TV’s reach beyond the PC and onto set-top boxes like the Apple TV, the Verismo box or the Roku (but not cable co. or satellite set-top boxes).

Willow’s expansion couldn’t have come at a better time as the cricket business is booming. A shorter version of cricket called Twenty20 that condenses the games from eight hours down to four is catching on, and earlier this month ESPN coughed up $900 million for the global rights to the Twenty20 Champions League.

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