Monday, May 16, 2005

WSJ.com - TV Networks Go Online to Capture Wider Viewership

WSJ.com - TV Networks Go Online to Capture Wider Viewership: "Big television networks are beefing up their Web services, anxious to capture some of the viewers and advertising dollars moving to the Internet.
E.W. Scripps Co.'s Scripps Networks, parent of Home & Garden Television and the Food Network, will announce today that it plans to launch several new Web sites designed for high-speed Internet services later this year. The new sites will offer specially made programs and repackaged TV content.
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Also today, Time Warner Inc.'s CNN is boosting its Internet presence by making video content on CNN.com available free. CNN has had video on the Web for some time, but it has previously required a subscription fee. CNN's rivals, News Corp.'s Fox News Channel and MSNBC -- which is owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC and Microsoft Corp. -- both already offer video for free on their Web sites."

Meanwhile, in the Boston Globe today, "Coming to the Net: niche programming"; excerpt:

"Also getting into the act: Brightcove Networks Inc. It will let customers avoid buying a separate set-top box and instead link their TVs to newer computers that run Microsoft Windows Media Center software.
Led by Jeremy Allaire, former chief technical officer of Macromedia, the Cambridge firm plans to begin offering a platform to deliver all manner of programming -- supplied by everyone from traditional TV producers to video bloggers to video-on-demand start-ups -- sometime in the second half of the year.
''I deeply believe that over the next several years it will be this blend of very popular shows to kind of middle-of-the-road, down to you-happen-to-be-a-fly-fishing-guy, and you watch fly fishing videos made by some guy in Kansas, and you're paying him $10 to see it," Allaire said."

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