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Posted by Goro on 11/14/05 20:27
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/business/14warner.html
My initial reaction is that this is an amazing plan. WB is buying
into the existing and emerging technologies and attempting to provide
customers with product they want while still tring to generate some
revenue out of it. 1-2 min of commercials. Hmm?
CBS and NBC in particular ought to feel downright embarassed and
meanwhile even ABC might be feeling it.
I'm interested in what exactly the form of these tv eps will be. Is it
a streaming video? I'd guess so as they mention that the ads cannot be
skipped. I'm also guessing from what they said that it will be better
than the 320x240 res of the iTunes downloads.
Now having said that, since this is still AOL/TW there's great room for
them to fsck it up but it's a great first step and one that's well past
due.
-goro-
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/business/14warner.html
Looking for "The Fugitive?" Didn't get enough "Eight Is Enough?" Would
you like to "Welcome Back, Kotter" one more time?
Warner Brothers is preparing a major new Internet service that will let
fans watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The
service, called In2TV, will be free, supported by advertising, and will
start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available
online in the first year.
Skip to next paragraph
Associated Press
David Janssen in "The Fugitive," the kind of fare expected to be
available.
The move will give Warner a way to reap new advertising revenue from a
huge trove of old programming that is not widely syndicated.
Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each
half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast.
The Internet commercials cannot be skipped.
America Online, which is making a broad push into Internet video, will
distribute the service on its Web portal. Both it and Warner Brothers
are Time Warner units. An enhanced version of the service will use
peer-to-peer file-sharing technology to get the video data to viewers.
Warner, with 800 television programs in its library, says it is the
largest TV syndicator. It wants to use the Internet to reach viewers
rather than depend on the whims of cable networks and local TV
stations, said Eric Frankel, the president of Warner Brothers' domestic
cable distribution division.
"We looked at the rise of broadband on Internet and said, 'Let's try to
be the first to create a network that opens a new window of
distribution for us rather than having to go hat in hand to a USA or a
Nick at Night or a TBS,' " Mr. Frankel said.
Warner's offering comes at a time when television producers and
networks are exploring new ways to use digital technology to distribute
programs.
Many of the recent moves include charging viewers for current programs.
ABC has started selling episodes of some programs to download to Apple
iPods for $1.99. And NBC and CBS announced last week that they would
sell reruns of their top new shows for 99 cents an episode through
video-on-demand services. CBS is working with Comcast and NBC with
DirecTV.
(The CBS programs to be sold on Comcast include commercials, but
viewers can skip them. The NBC programs on DirecTV and the ABC programs
from Apple have no commercials.)
Of the media companies' new experiments, Peter Storck, president of the
Points North Group, a research firm, remarked, "They are saying let's
take the plunge, put the content out there, and figure out how to
monetize it." Programs on In2TV will range from recently canceled
series like "La Femme Nikita" to vintage shows like "Maverick" from the
early 1960's . Other series that will be available include "Chico and
the Man," "Wonder Woman" and "Babylon 5."
The company will offer a changing selection of several hundred episodes
each month, rather than providing continuous access to all the episodes
in a series, Mr. Frankel said, so as not to cannibalize potential DVD
sales of old TV shows.
And in the future, when Warner negotiates with cable networks to
syndicate popular programs, Mr. Frankel said, the price will be higher
if the network wants it kept off the Internet.
For AOL, the In2TV deal is part of a broad strategy to create a range
of video offerings to attract people to its free AOL.com portal. It
already offers some video news and sports programs from CBS News, ABC
and CNN.
At the same time, it is creating programming aimed at women and young
people, including an online reality series called "The Biz," giving
contestants the chance to become a music producer, in conjunction with
the Warner Music Group (which is no longer owned by Time Warner).
Next month AOL will introduce TMZ, an entertainment news service, in a
joint venture with another Warner Brothers division, Telepictures
Productions. TMZ, named for the 30-mile zone around Hollywood that is
mentioned in some film-union contracts, will mix breaking entertainment
news and gossip with a database of information and video about
celebrities. It will be run by Harvey Levin, former executive producer
of " Celebrity Justice," a syndicated program about the legal woes of
entertainment figures, which Telepictures canceled last spring.
TMZ and most of AOL's programming effort, so far, have been built
largely around short video segments, reflecting the conventional view
that Internet users are less likely to want to watch full-length
programs on a computer screen.
Yet a recent survey by the Points North Group of 1,098 Internet users
found that 28 percent said they wanted to watch regular television
shows on their PC's or laptops, Mr. Storck said.
Full-length TV shows on the In2TV service responds to that demand,
particularly as more people hook their computers up to their television
sets.
AOL will offer a version of the service meant to be watched on a
television set connected to a Windows Media Center PC, and it is
exploring a similar arrangement to link the Internet programming to
television through TiVo video recorders.
For those who want to watch on a big screen, AOL is introducing
optional technology that it says will produce a DVD-quality picture.
Even with a broadband connection, most Internet video looks grainy at
full width on a computer monitor, let alone a big TV set. The new
option, called AOL Hi-Q, will require the downloading once of special
software, and the program may not start for several minutes, depending
on the speed of the users' connection.
There is a catch. To use the technology, viewers will have to agree to
participate in a special file-sharing network. This approach helps AOL
reduce the cost of distributing-high quality video files by passing
portions of the video files from one user's computer to another. AOL
says that since it will control the network, it can protect users from
the sorts of viruses and spyware that infect other peer-to-peer
systems.
AOL is using file-sharing technology from Kontiki, a Silicon Valley
company providing a similar system to the ambitious Internet video
program of the BBC.
Warner is also adding shorter segments and interactive features for
users who do not want to watch entire episodes. Each month, there will
be a series of one- or two-minute excerpts drawn from the full-length
episodes, featuring funny scenes or segments showing famous actors when
they played bit parts on TV. (Brad Pitt, for one, had a small role on
"Growing Pains" in 1987.) These excerpts can be sent to friends by
e-mail or instant message, and will eventually be offered on mobile
phones.
Other programs will be accompanied by interactive features that can be
displayed side by side with the video, like trivia quizzes and video
games related to the shows. One feature, to accompany "Welcome Back,
Kotter," will allow users to upload a picture of themselves (or a
friend) and superimpose 1970's hair styles and fashion, and send the
pictures by e-mail to friends or use as icons on AOL's instant-message
system.
"This is great goofy stuff that fans are going to love," Mr. Storck of
the Points North Group said.
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