ABC And WB Tie Up On Online Show Streaming Rights; Studio Gets Rights Too

ABC Entertainment (NYSE: DIS) and Warner Bros. TV Group (NYSE: TWX) have tied up on streaming rights for four WBTV shows including “Pushing Daisies”, with an interesting twist form the usual slate of such deals: the two-year deal gives ABC the opportunity to stream WBTV shows as non-permanent offerings in year one, and WB then has the ability to distribute those same episodes in year two — as permanent downloads and DVD box sets in addition to non-permanent online streams, reports Variety. The idea is to have WB have an opportunity to tap into the online ad-supported revenues much sooner than usual.

Some specifics: The shows will be shown on ABC.com broadband player for up to four weeks after each episode’s initial broadcast. ABC will retain the ad revenue generated on the player. Then in year two, WBTV will take over the rights to stream the previous year’s episodes anywhere, and will also then keep that second-year ad revenue. Slightly unusual: WBTV will continue to brand those second-year downloads as coming from ABC — and will be required to promote back to the network. The deal is experimental, though may become a template for other such future deals.

Previously, the the two sides split online components, with ABC retaining non-permanent streaming rights (including ad revenue) and Warner Bros. keeping all permanent download rights.

THR: The arrangement rewrites the standard industry exchange that dictates the studio retains only revenue from electronic sell-through platforms like Apple’s iTunes while the network gets only rights and revenue from streaming ad-supported episodes. The deal represents another diminution of the four-year exclusivity period studios once granted programming they licensed to the networks.

Interesting way of looking at sell-throughs (downloads) and their value: By ceding second-year revenue, ABC could be calculating that there won’t be significant viewership for repeat viewings online. That said, ads WBTV sells for repeats can’t be based on individual ABC series, only “run of site” sales that cover an entire site.

Comments have been disabled for this post