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Modern
Times Group announces that Viasat Broadcasting will launch a subscription ‘video-on-demand’
service on its Viasat OnDemand internet portal in Sweden, Denmark and Norway on 2
February. The subscription service will make an unrivalled range of pay-TV content
available over the internet, including live sports events, hundreds of episodes of
hit TV series, and access to 200 feature films at any given time.

The content, which comes from major US studios, leading TV channels and premium sports
rights holders, is being made available to subscribers in a variety of thematic packages,
ranging in price from SEK 49 per month to SEK 199 per month for the Total package.
The Entertainment package offers around-the-clock, on-demand access to great drama,
comedy and sci-fi TV series such as Two and a Half Men, Friends, ER, Supernatural
and Smallville, whilst the Documentary package carries award-winning documentaries
from leading film makers. The Sports package includes live coverage of UEFA Champions
League football, ATP and Davis Cup tennis, the NHL and HockeyAllsvenskan ice hockey
leagues, and motor racing’s Formula One World Championship and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
The Movie package features current worldwide blockbusters such as Hancock, You Don’t
Mess with the Zohan and The Kite Runner, as well as modern classics such as Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ocean’s Eleven and Kill Bill. The Total package
provides unlimited access to all of the genre packages, as well as full parental control
functions for the protection of younger viewers.

The new subscription service will further consolidate ViasatOnDemand’s position as
the leading provider of online TV content in Scandinavia. The platform also includes
the catch-up TV services for Viasat’s own free-TV channels and leading third party
free-TV channels, and already enables viewers to pay-per-event for a wide range of
high profile live and recorded sports events, or pay-per-day for access to an extensive
list of current and library movie titles.

See original here:
Viasat Launches Subscription Online Video on Demand Service

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IMS
Research’s report Market
Opportunities for Internet Video to the TV reveals demand for connected CE devices
are being driven by increased bandwidth, the evolution of content delivery methods
and the convergence of media industries. These market drivers are resulting in new
delivery methods, new content and evident changes in consumer behavior.

Adoption of over-the-top content will become an extension of subscription packages,
but OTT on the TV will not become a ubiquitous solution until at least 2015, as it
is still emerging in most countries. IMS Research Analyst Rebecca Kurlak says, “Many
companies are making the OTT connection. Accedo Broadband is an example of a vendor
that offers interactive and long tail VOD content for both IPTV services and connected
TVs. BT, PCCW, CHT, and OTE are all examples of tier one telcos that are casting a
wider and deeper net.”

Should pay-TV operators be concerned?

“Not necessarily,” Kurlak concludes. “Pay-TV operators garnered 57% of global TV households
at the end of 2009. They are changing their strategies to stay abreast of changing
viewing habits. We have already seen numerous operators who are future-proofing their
set-top boxes (STBs) with internet connectivity to enable future streaming services.”

The IMS Research study IPTV: A Global Market Analysis reveals that nearly 13% of global
IP set-top box (STB) shipments in 2008 were operator-deployed hybrid boxes with the
ability to receive content via IP or digital terrestrial broadcasts. Of these 1.6
million hybrid STBs deployed, 87% were shipped to Western European TV households.

Kurlak continues, “Not only will hybrid STBs experience a surge from operators, but
in the retail market as well. IP Vision and Fetch TV are just two examples of operator-free
TV service business models available to Western Europe households.” The boxes supply
à la carte VOD offerings, DVR functionality and digital multichannel TV capabilities
in tandem with free-to-air (FTA) DTT channels.

Read more here:
IMS Research: The End of the Walled Garden Led by Pay-TV Operators

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This week’s Economist magazine examines the concept of ‘broken Britain’, the contention that the country is ‘going to the dogs’ and comes to a surprising conclusion: overall things are better than they’ve ever been and it’s largely the fault of a sensationalist media that the public take such a doomed view of their lives.

Now, journalism, especially UK newspaper journalism, has always been full of doom and gloom. And this in turn influences other journalists. And naturally, moaning and groaning is the lot of bloggers, including the authors of this website, so this isn’t an affliction restricted to the professional media.

In the US things tend to be reversed, where newspapers on the whole, tend to be held to a higher account of veracity whereas channels such as Fox News are able to display any editorial balance their editors and owners deem fit.

At a time when everyone is questioning the value of journalism and contemplating charging for content, this becomes a very important issue. The tendency is to become more competitive and more sensational in order to justify the charges being levied: the news gatherers become the news makers and the agenda is set on our screens not our ballot boxes. The Pulitzer v Heart newspaper wars that stoked the coals that lit the US Spanish war is a lesson from history (and there are plenty of other examples).

We are all more media literate today, but the pervasiveness of the negative news agenda is worrying.

xping.pubsub.com/ping

See the original post:
Looking On The Bright Side

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There’s more and more ‘spillage’ of restricted rights happening, especially when it comes to live feeds – my colleague Peter Lewinton has blogged on this site concerning the problems this cause. However, I think it’s worth doing a round up of some of the more notable sites, leaving YouTube to one side for now.

Justin.tv still confounds me. It a mess of a service - a video equivalent of the pop up hell that was current around a decade ago. But you can find stuff on it that you can’t find elsewhere. For example, I pay two Sky Sports subscriptions and still can’t access any games on the red button. My only recourse is to Justin.tv; the experience sucks, but it’s better than text only reports.

In the UK there’s an obscure law that allows live feeds to be re-transmitted - it was something to do with getting signals into the back of remote Welsh valleys at the time, but seems to remain a loophole as far as those advising a number of companies who capitalise on this get-around seem to be concerned. Zattoo was the first service to offer live UK telly over the web, now there are a few more services including TV Guide and TV Catchup.

In the US content has been more widely available, but has been geo-controlled, so unless you were a bit tech savvy or had a Slingbox you could only watch services like Hulu in the US. Now TV Gorge offers a wide range of programmes available on demand; they claim some kind of alliance with Hulu and I haven’t been able to figure out if the service is legal or not.

xping.pubsub.com/ping

Read the original here:
Watching For Free

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Ooyala announces
they reached over 1 million unique users with live streaming content this past weekend.
Ooyala’s high volume viewership is attributed to several live events that took place
over the weekend. These events included Telegraph Media Group’s live streaming of
former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq Inquiry in London, The
52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards and Volcom’s Pipeline Pro surfing competition.

Some of the most watched live streaming events included:

• The 52nd GRAMMY Awards microsite, GRAMMYLive!, led viewership numbers with over 500,000
  unique users and a cumulative play time of close to 150,000 hours.
• Telegraph Media Group’s live stream of Tony Blair at the Iraq Inquiry was viewed in
  over 200 countries.
• The first-ever, Volcom Pipeline Pro, was viewed by 100,000 fans around the world

See original here:
Ooyala Reaches Over 1 Million Unique Viewers with Live Streaming Video