Tag Archives: video on demand

View TV Group plans to bring local TV to 660 UK towns

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A company specialising in video on demand and TV production has set up a platform that allow towns to buy a licence and broadcast content online.

View TV Group is currently working with 78 towns and aims for a total of 660 to sign up to use its “View TV Local”, a BBC iPlayer-style site compatible with iPhone and iPad.

The proposition is that each town will provide half its content and View TV Group will supply the rest, with the same programming, such as motoring reviews and national programmes, being rolled out to all areas.

The company plans to “up sell” the local content created to the TV stations which are planned as part of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s planned local TV network.

Earlier this week, Hunt backtracked on plans to create a centralised service and instead confirmed he favours individual TV stations.

Chairman and founder of View TV Group Jamie Branson told Journalism.co.uk the company’s proposals offered something different.

“Think of View TV Local as more like a hyperlocal and Hunt’s plans as regional TV,” he explained.

View TV Group is now selling licences for towns with costs starting at around £10,000, which pays for the technology, support and unlimited video upload.

After paying for a licence the local TV channels can bring in revenue by selling local advertising, a cut of which goes to the View TV Group. The company believes it has devised a revenue model that will work and “where the only risk is the initial licence fee”, Branson explained.

Branson did not want to reveal company names but said his firm is in talks with a newspaper group, plus several magazines and online publishers interested in local TV and video content.

Round-up: Media Futures conference 2009 – ‘Beyond Broadcast’

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“Gradually more power cuts – the future is more certain than you think (…) With 90 per cent certainty I can tell you that tomorrow will be Saturday.”
James Woudhuysen, professor of forecasting, De Montford University

“Content is not king, it’s about how people use it. SMS is one of the most expensive mediums but still massively popular.”
Matt Locke, commissioning editor, education new media, Channel 4

The above quotes were just a small sample of the varied and interesting points discussed at Media Futures 2009 in London last Friday.

The conference explored the future of the media as we move ‘beyond broadcast’.

Speakers and guests included the BBC’s Richard Sambrook, POLIS director Charlie Beckett and TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher.

Themes for discussion included desirable, feasible, challenging and viable futures for the industry.

Television
Video on Demand (VOD) was a popular topic, which divided opinions. Avner Ronen, founder of Boxee, a video service that connects your TV to online streaming media, argued that personal video recorders (PVR) were soon to be obsolete.

But as media analysts, including Toby Syfret from Enders, were quick to point out, TV still has a lot of life left in it. According to his analysis, despite the success of services such as the BBC iPlayer, watching streamed content remains a niche market with just 0.5 per cent of total viewing time being spent on computers.

Newspapers
Panellists were agreed on the future for local newspapers. Patrick Barwise, professor of management and marketing at London Business School said: “Local newspapers won’t come back, the classified advertising model that held them together has changed.”

After the conference I ran into Bill Thompson, the BBC’s technology columnist. Listen below to hear his views on the future for journalists:

Alex Wood is a multimedia journalist and social media consultant based in London. You can find him on twitter here.

FT.com: EC scrutiny for new PSB activities

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“Moves by public sector broadcasters within the EU to expand their activities into new areas, such as mobile TV and video on demand, would still be subject to prior independent scrutiny under revisions to controversial proposals published by Brussels on Friday,” reports the Financial Times.

Full story at this link…

Cameron calls for restraints on BBC’s commercial operations, supports local media

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At the Annual Newspaper Conference Lunch on Tuesday David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party was quick to criticise the ‘crushing’ power of the BBC.

The comments were made at the annual Newspaper Conference lunch, reported on the Newspaper Society’s website.

Addressing members of the Newspaper Conference, a body administrated by the Newspaper Society, made up of 20 regional press journalists and based in Westminster, Cameron insisted further restraints should be put on the BBC’s commercial operations.

“They [the BBC] have got to bear in mind that when they enter new markets, they are often in danger of crushing with the great big foot of the BBC enterprise, entrepreneurship and risk and capital that other organisations have put into those areas,” he said.

“Things like what they have been doing in education, some of the things they’ve been doing [sic] online, their plans for video on demand, and some of what they’ve been doing in competition with local newspapers, those are the things where they should be restrained,” said the Conservative leader

The BBC’s regulatory body, the BBC Trust also came under fire:

“I’d also like to see them [the BBC] regulated more in the way of other commercial television companies. I know the BBC Trust is an improvement on the old form of government but to me independent regulation has got to be independent.

“I still don’t really understand how you can partly be regulated by the BBC Trust, which is you, and partly by Ofcom. It doesn’t make sense.”

Speaking to the Newspaper Conference members, Cameron praised regional newspapers referring to them as being ‘valuable in terms of the health of a combative democracy’.

links for 2008-07-01

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Five and Hulu sign technology deals with Signiant

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UK broadcaster Five has selected digital media technology firm Signiant to help it switch from a tape-based to file-based broadcasting system.

The deal will extend to Five’s post-production operations and video on demand service, as well as to its external partners including Red Bee Media.

Five follows the BBC, which introduced Signiant’s digital media distribution management suite last month to provide intranet, satellite or public internet delivery services between its international offices.

In a separate release, Signiant said internet TV site Hulu will use its software to create an automated content aggregation system for the site.