Microsoft is on the hunt for sponsors for a UK trial of long-form video content on MSN, according to Ashley Highfield, MD & VP of consumer & online at Microsoft UK, reports Danielle Long from Cannes

Speaking to new media age at the Cannes Lions international advertising festival, Highfield said the pilot would gauge consumer interest in the service, but added it wouldn't launch until content and technology deals had been struck and a launch sponsor had been found.

Microsoft has been rumoured to be mulling over long-form content on MSN since appointing the former director of BBC Future Media & Technology, as which he launched the BBC iPlayer, and MD of the now-defunct video-on-demand service Project Kangaroo. However, this is the first time Highfield has revealed solid plans.

"Clearly video is a particular passion of mine and I think, as we enter the third age of the web, it's only going to get bigger," he said. "MSN Video is the UK's third-largest site for video viewing but it's all short form, so we'll look at whether it's compelling to advertisers and consumers to move into long form.

"We’re certain we're not going to use UGC – we want all our content to be decent," Highfield added. "We know there's audience demand for long form but before we launch anything we want to get the content lined up, the technology in place and a launch sponsor then we'll see how it goes."

Source: NMA

Labels: ashley highfield, msn, vod

Coda Research argued in its recent VOD report that broadcasters, distributors and rights owners should think carefully about employing Blu-Ray players for VOD. A major reason for this is that consumer interest in Blu-Ray is declining.

This is backed up by research by Harris Interactive. The press release is below.

Interest in Blu-ray Remains Lukewarm. Few likely to purchase a Blu-ray player within the next year

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – June 18, 2009 – While Blu-ray was declared the big "winner" in
the high definition format war last year, consumers may be slow to be part of the winning team. In fact, Americans are not jumping on board with any of the high definition DVD players. Just one in ten Americans (11%) own a HD DVD player while 7% own a Blu-ray player. Looking at the other devices for playing HD DVDs, 9% own a Sony PLAYSTATION 3 (which plays Blu-ray ) and 3% have the external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 (which plays HD DVDs).

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,401 U.S. adults surveyed online between April 13 and 21, 2009 by Harris Interactive. While slow to catch on, ownership of all these high definition disc players is up from May 2008.

Interestingly, while Blu-ray was the clear "format war" winner over HD DVD, sales of HD DVD players (11% in 2009 vs. 6% in 2008) are up over 2008 by about the same margin as Blu-ray players (7% in 2009 vs. 4% in 2008). Both were rivaled by the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 (9% vs. 5%). However, only 3% purchased the external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, up from 1% in 2008. There is no expected surge of interest pending -- only 7% of non-Blu-ray player owners report a likely purchase of a Blu-ray disc player within the next year, down from 9% in May 2008

Ownership of HDTVs
Looking at high definition television sets, almost half of consumers now report owning a high definition television (47%), up decidedly from May of 2008 (35%). HDTV ownership rises dramatically with household income (27% for those with less than $35K vs. 62% among those with more than $75K).

Are Blu-ray Player Owners Switching from Standard DVDs to Blu-ray Discs?
On average, consumers purchased approximately 6 Standard Format DVD’s in the last six months compared with 1 in HD format (HD DVD .7 vs. Blu-ray .5). However, plans to purchase Standard Format DVDs is down by half compared to past six month purchases, while interest in HD DVDs (.6) and Blu-ray (.7) are holding their own. Notably, HD DVD format purchases reflect the continued sales of the HD DVD players within the past year.

When Blu-ray player or PS3 owners are asked specifically about standard versus Blu Ray format purchases, the results suggest a mixed bag of behaviors with some price sensitivity indicated:

• Only one quarter plan to switch to Blu-ray completely (25%), while one third of Blu-ray or PS3 owners claim that most of their movie purchases are now on Bluray format (32%);
• Two in five are waiting for Blu-ray format prices to come down before they buy more (43%) – and a quarter buy Blu-ray regardless of price (25%); and,
• Only 1 in 5 appear to be replacing or duplicating their existing standard format DVD library with Blu-ray format (21%), and over a third say they only buy movies on Blu-ray format that they currently do not own on standard definition (37%).

So What?
In addition to financial issues that may be slowing consumer adoption, Milton Ellis, Vice President and Senior Consultant, Harris Interactive Technology, Media, and Telecom Practice added, "Blu-ray also faces competition from alternative technologies such as cable, satellite, and the Internet. Consumers today can easily watch high definition TV channels or use the Internet or video-on-demand to access high definition movies. In the near future, access to high definition movies may be a download or streaming delivery of one’s favorite movies to a home media server that eliminates the need for a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray disc. One thing is for sure, the market will be highly competitive and consumers will have a wide variety of choices for their entertainment experience."

Labels: Blu-Ray, vod

One of the findings from Coda Research's recent report into VOD was that there is significant demand from people to be able to easily create their own snippets from long form content which they can embed onto their social networking pages, such as MySpace and Facebook.

UK broadcaster Five hasn't quite managed this, but it has just signed a deal with VOD player Brightcove to enable viewers to embed whole pieces of long-form Five shows. The RTL-owned company says it hopes the scheme will led to increased online ad revenue when it’s rolled out later this year.

Labels: Brightcove, Five, vod

BT has called for an end to the 'free ride' it says video websites such as the BBC iPlayer and YouTube enjoy on its network.

The telecoms group was accused last week of 'throttling' iPlayer performance at peak times, and has only now spoken publicly for the first time about it.

Outlining its intentions, John Petter, managing director of BT Retail's consumer business, said that it hopes to charge content owners for delivery of their programmes over its broadband network. "We can't give the content providers a completely free ride and continue to give customers the [service] they want at the price they expect."

Broadband providers have been complaining for two years about the burden placed on their network by bandwidth-hungry video services.

Mr Petter continued by saying that video sites consuming bandwidth was a "much bigger issue than the BBC iPlayer, it's true of all forms of video content coming across the web. It's becoming a more and more pressing issue". An increasing number of content providers were "developing very profitable business models" delivering content across BT networks, and that they should therefore contribute to the costs they were generating for BT.

Source: FT

Labels: BT, iPlayer, vod

Channel 4 is making its back catalogue of programmes, including Queer As Folk, Brass Eye and Father Ted, available on its catch-up service 4oD for free.

From next month, Channel 4 will add around 10,000 programmes to is 4OD service. 4OD was overhauled in April as part of the channel’s ongoing aim to increase the amount of video-on-demand content available online.

Jon Gisby, Channel 4 director of future media and technology, said, “We were the first broadcaster to launch a comprehensive on-demand service in 2006 and since then 4oD has become one of the UK’s most popular VOD brands. We’re extremely proud of the improved service and think the combination of fantastic content that’s easy to find and view will prove compelling for all users.”

According to Nielsen Online data, 31.9m minutes of video content was watched on channel4.com in March 2009, up from 13.2m a year earlier. The BBC’s iPlayer delivered 93.4m minutes of content in March, and ITV Player 42.5m minutes.

Labels: 4OD, Channel 4, vod

BBC - Press Office - Press Release: "Joint statement from the BBC, ITV and BT

The partners in the proposed Project Canvas venture (BBC, ITV and BT) have welcomed the BBC Trust's statement, issued today.

'We welcome the Trust's statement and the opportunity to publish more information and we are keen to support a timely conclusion of the Trust's consultation process.

'The BBC Trust's announcement today states that their consultation 'found widespread support for the delivery of IPTV into the home' and the potential role of the BBC to 'coordinate and accelerate this process'.

'The partners believe that Canvas will maximise choice for consumers, sustain the long-term future of free-to-air broadcasting and promote broadband take-up. We also believe it will create significant opportunities for content providers and offer a real alternative in the TV market.

'Internet connectivity will have a transformational effect on TV. A viewing experience unconstrained by broadcast spectrum will give a far greater range of content providers access to the living room, creating unprecedented consumer choice and control over what content they view and when.'"

Labels: BBC, BT, ITV, Project Canvas, vod

Hulu has just released a desktop app that allows users (in the US) to browse the site's content using your PC's remote control - Windows Media Center remote and the Apple Remote are both compatible). Both applications are native too, so you won’t have to deal with any quirkiness from Adobe AIR.

Not quite VOD to TV, but it does help the VOD to PC experience to be a little more laid back.

Labels: hulu, vod

Every single minute, over 20 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube.

Wait a minute.

In that minute, nearly a day's worth of video was uploaded.

Growth is becoming more rapid. In 2007, it was 6 hours uploaded every minute, in January this year, it was 15 hours. Now it’s 20 — soon it will be 24.

Labels: vod, YouTube

On the back of my post about Hulu a couple of days ago is news that Hulu is set to launch in the UK this September.

A source close to the negotiations said: “Hulu is proposing to launch this September with 3,000 hours of American content, as well as material from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. It will be playing catch-up in the short-term until it has enough British TV content and will need a unique selling point in the short term.”

However, negotiations have temporarily stopped because Hulu wants to retain control over Channel 4’s and ITV’s advertising sales around all of content on the platform.

(Source: Telegraph.co.uk)

Labels: hulu, vod

”The enormous consumer benefits that internet-powered TV can bring should not be restricted to paying customers. An open, standards-based platform, that enables a far greater range of content providers to enter the market, will be good for content owners and good for consumers - who gain a subscription-free alternative.”

"Freeview and Freesat transformed digital TV, and showed what standards-based platforms can do for audiences and the industry. Canvas has the potential to do the same for the next generation of TV, bringing content on-demand from a huge range of providers into the living room, all for a one-off fee."

They added: “Access to the Canvas platform would be open to any third-party, including Sky.”

Labels: BBC Trust, BSkyB, Project Canvas, vod

BSkyB sees Project Canvas as a competitive threat. It isn't. Canvas will be help VOD via TV to be the tipping point for VOD. Rather than compete with BSkyB, it will complement it and drive interest in VOD, to the benefit of BSkyB and Virgin Media. There is also the supposition by BSkyB that a large proportion who don't current use BSkyB will eventually do so. They won't. We enlarge upon the reasons for BSkyB not to be overly concerned with Canvas in our recent VOD report.

Labels: BBC, Project Canvas, Sky Virgin Media, vod

Hulu has adjusted its settings so that people from outside the US are now unable to use anonymous proxies to access Hulu content. On the one hand, this is understandable; they need to protect rights. On the other hand, it's indicative of how slow the VOD industry is at responding to people's behaviour and even how short sighted many of those who work in this industry are. The very people outside the US who use IP proxies are the exact same people who are now likely to use BitTorrent and other Torrent software to get access to this content. It would have been far better if Hulu had continued to permit IP proxy access to its content whilst it continued its efforts to work internationally.

Labels: hulu, iPlayer, Project Canvas, vod

Apple has just rejected a BitTorrent iPhone application on the grounds of potential rights' infringement. (a) the app is indicative of how people are using iPhones (and other smartphones) to view video out of home, (b) this isn't going to stop iPhone users viewing illegal content on their phones because our research shows that they are already downloading via BitTorrent, re-encoding for iPhones and iPod Touch, and then watching these on the train/plane/bus.

Labels: BitTorrent, iPhone, iPod, vod

Games devices, especially PSPs are often used for watching video out of home. It's one of the unexpected successes of the PSP. But I think the days of VOD via PSPs are severely limited. This is because mobile gaming devices, for out of home use, are being 'squeezed' between the laptop and smartphones. And I just read this post, which says something similar. What makes the situation worse for the PSP is the advent of the netbook: "(Netbooks are) the latest piece of kit every self-respecting techie should be packing. The ultimate in portable computing, these dinky devices would be seated between a laptop and a smartphone at the dinner table." For out of home video use in which display doesn't have to be that great, netbooks, with their low cost, decent battery longevity and small size, can only be bad for Sony.

Labels: gaming, vod

Two interesting pieces of news today. Firstly, Hulu has asked Boxee to disable the ability of its media centre software to stream Hulu content to TV. Although this is seems understandable from the view of rights' holders - it gives people less of a reason to view content via cable or buy shows via other providers - from the view of consumers, it's frustrating. People want to be able to view VOD content via TVs if they choose to do so (for a number of reasons that I will discuss in detail in Coda's forthcoming VOD Report). Rights holders need to understand this, and people will see this as further evidence of rights' holders being out of touch, and further reason for viewing content illegally.

Secondly, there has been a lot of hype around being able to embed ads on blank spaces in video as a way of monetising VOD. Zunavision provides such a service, but it's proposition needs to be treated with suspicion: "natural, uninterrupted viewing; unskippable impressions; and increased monetisation for producers and sites." Clearly, this won't always be the case. It might work in some televised sports events, for example, and is already used fairly successfully in cricket and American football. But how 'uninterrupted' would such inserts be in other content, such as in films and documentaries? Product placement can work when used carefully (and can even be humourously executed), but examples such as Spiderman show that people often view product placement unfavourably and find that it interrupts their experience of the content. Sure, embed ads, but carefully choose how and in what content in which you do this. The drive to monetisation of VOD shouldn't be done blindly.

Labels: hulu, monetisation, monetization, tv, vod, zunavision