webcasting business model

China launches ambitious Chinese Internet TV service

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:37:00 +0000

On December 28, 2009, China Central Television launched its international webcast television service with the domain name of CNTV.cn. (China Network Television). It will become the most elaborate webcast video service in the world with its ambitious plan. It shows that Chinese government realizes the immense international potential of webcasting.

CNTV offers five major types of programs. They are news, sports, entertainment, and two online video products named "bugu" and "xiyou". "Xiyou" serves as a community where users share their uploaded videos. "Bugu" provides video services including live online broadcasts, video on demand, and 24-7 replays.

The goal of the Internet TV service is to offer live web casting of all programs from CCTV's 20 channels. It will work to collect 400 thousand hours of programs created by CCTV in previous years. Meanwhile, it offers services such as program request, search, download and comment.

Tentatively, its business model will follow the CCTV model with state funding and advertising support. The question is the adoption. The webcast is only in Chinese with no English subtitles or English version or other languages.

Used Generated content (Video sharing) vs. Professional Video Content

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:13:00 +0000

The latest issue of Television Week's (Dec 17) article discusses cross promotion among video sharing sites. Veoh , Revision3, Next New Networks and blip.tv are quoted as successful examples to build traffic from one another. This is a phenomenon discussed in the Webcasting Worldwide Book about the different business models of content aggregators and a media brand site. Most video-sharing sites are content aggregators to maximize reach of audience and they don't have offline media counterparts to support them. The way they can succeed is to draw audiences from everywhere and provide with as diversified as possible the content for one-stop viewing. Surfers are who they will get as audiences. Branded media sites have their own unique content and already capture some followers from their offline media counterparts. An article I wrote four years ago in Journal of Interactive Advertising discusses the two different strategies employed by media companies in providing their services online: Brand integration and brand extension. Although most of the TV web sites are still supportive as brand integration, more and more TV web sites evolve as self-sufficient online video sites.

Webcast turned local

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:55:00 +0000

Our department's alumnus, Mr. Mark Geyman, President of Ohio Biz Web Consulting, visiting our campus last Friday durinig the homecoming weekend. He spoke to a class and showed his web page that compiles all Ohio webstreaming services at http://www.ohiobiz.com/Ohioradiofeeds.htm. You will be impressed how prevalent is the use of Webcasting by local media. We should be grateful to the many people like Mark who devotes time to compile and aggregate content for us consumers. I hope more people will know about this service.

With its huge capacity, there are two directions that the Web can go: Being more local and being more global. Both depth and breadth should be examined for the future of Webcasting.

NBC new business model emphasize the multiple media platforms while curbing piracy

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:42:00 +0000

NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker announced the various viewing platforms for its audience. In today''s Broadcasting and Cable, he explained the multiple platforms the network is offering to its audience. For anyone who might miss Thursday night's debut of 30 Rock: A viewer can stream it free at NBC.com; download it free-of-charge and keep it for seven days, also at NBC.com; buy it at Amazon.com and keep it "forever"; watch it "on-demand" on some cable and satellite systems; watch it on a cell phone; "in a few weeks" time, stream it at Hulu.com, the new joint venture with News Corp.; or even buy the DVD at the end of the season. What this means is that Webcast is being instituted as a regular part of the TV network's channel for delivery and that Webcast will compete with other platforms for the alternative TV audience. The new business model is whenever and however you want to watch or own the TV program, the network will give you options. You pay for ownership and convenience.
He reiterated the concern for protecting the content property rights. What is then the advantage of putting it on the Web? The accessibility and interactivity are the key to success in webcasting. The multiple transmission options (on demand, download and live streaming) that NBCU adopted meet the Accessibility component of the ACR model in the Webcasting Worldwide book. The only option that NBCU has not explored is push.

Seoul newspaper rides on webcasting

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:54:00 +0000

The City, Seoul’s sixth free daily, has gone fully multi-media. Apart from the newspaper and the website, the City has formed a strategic alliance with webcaster Pandora TV (786,000 unique daily visitors) to enter online broadcasting and will be on TV screens in the Seoul Metro system. Read more on the Newspaper Innovation blog of our webcasting worldwide book Netherlands chapter contributor, Piet Bakker.

Online Video Once Again a NATPE Seminar Topic

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:42:00 +0000

Today I attended a webinar offered by the US National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE). This is the third time in a row that NATPE's webinars is about online video content and business models. This shows the anxiety and interest of traditional television producers and managers in webcast content. What were discussed today had been covered and discussed in the Webcasting Worldwide book: revenue sources in addition to advertising.

Speakers of the webinar are Sharon Martin from MSN, Chase Norlin from Pixsy, a video and image search engine and Douglas Cheney, producer of Prom Queen, an 80-episode series for the Web with each episode lasting only 90 seconds. Their three cases show the importance of utilizing the Web's participatory culture and interactive future to build audience loyalty. MSN showcased three types of webcast content and business models during the seminar. One is a live event and now on demand as well: Live Earth. The star-studded concert series with purposes of raising awareness of environment protection reported served 15 million viewers and 50 million streams and is the most watched webcast event. Although these figures may have been exaggerated, the most important take of this event is that 97% of the ad inventories were sold for the site. The second one is an original web show content called Big Debate where visitors vote on gossips and trivial issues such as whether the visitor prefer to have MacDonna or Angelina as the mom. The original shows did not cost much to produce (low-cost content strategy in the Webcasting Worldwide Book), but the returns can be big when the idea is innovative and get to the heart of the audience. User participation became the basis of audience loyalty. The third example is use of syndicated content: Arrested Development from the broadcast network. The web site built around loyal viewers and created a community of fans of the show with multiple platforms to support the content such as blogs, games and messenger.

Prom Queen uses multiple revenue sources to support its extremely short webisodes. For advertising revenue, it offers 3 second curtain ads and 15 second of pre or post roll ads. Product placements in the webisodes are also used to generate revenue. The compilation sales ($9.99 download deal) with Amazon.com Unbox is the third revenue source. As the Webcasting Worldwide book discusses, multiple revenue sources will be the norm in webcasting.

The use of metatags and keywords are the key to all kind of search. Pixsy is doing similar things as what Google Video is doing, but in a smaller scale. I would say most video search is very poor in yielding relevant results, partly because the video were not properly tagged for search engines and many also use misleading keywords. Seach engine must move beyond the text-based description to improve accuracy in video search.

Online videos are taking up 1/3 of the Internet traffic now and continues to grow with increasing broadband adoption. As Business Week's Spencer Ante predicts, they revived the telecom industry by utilizing the bandwidth capacities that broadband and fiber optic networks supposed to do. The Webcasting Worldwide book shows the importance in understanding the broadband industry to the webcasting industry. But broadband only provides the infrastructure, what content do webcasters offer can affect the viewership of online videos.

The future of webcasting depends on video-sharing sites?

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:00:00 +0000

MySpace, the largest social networking site renamed its video-sharing service to MySpace TV onJune 28 to compete directly with YouTube. MySpace has 110 million users a month and YouTube has 57.9 million users. These two big video-sharing sites' aggressive development in online video offerings raise the question of the importance of these sites video-sharing sites on the future of webcasting. To say the very least, the increasing popularity of video-sharing transformed webcasting from simply another platform for media professionals to a user-generated medium. It increases the consumption of webcast at least on user-generated content. The competition of professional content and user-generated content for webcast users attention will be an interesting phenonemon that further increase the consumption of webcasts.

Internet Radio Silence Day and Web Video Summit - A Tale of Two Types of Webcasters

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:20:00 +0000

This week two contrasting events both of significant meaning to the webcasting industry happened.

On one hand, today thousands of other U.S. webcasters, turned off their music streams and go silent for 24 hours June 26th to demonstrate the "silence" that Internet radio may be reduced to permanently after July 15th, the day on which 17 months' (Jan 1, 2006) worth of retroactive royalty payments set by the Copyright Royalty Board are due. If these new royalties are implemented, it threatens the survival of US Internet radio industry. The new fee structure would change the basis of the payments to a flat fee for each song streamed on a per-user basis. Thus, in 2007, every song sent to every listener would net SoundExchange, a royalty collection organization with ties to the RIAA, $0.0011, regardless of whether the broadcaster made any money by doing so. The fees are scheduled to more than double over the next five years. The Internet Radio Equality Act has recently been introduced in both the House and Senate to save the Internet radio industry.

On the other hand, Jupiter Media, The media research consulting company, will hold its web video summit June 27-28 in San Jose, California to showcase the bright prospect of creating and distributing web video with topics such as video search engines, mobile videos, etc. Interestingly, the copyright issue is not touched in the conference sessions.

While it's not unusual to see the battle between established media and new media, the new rule of the game is copyright and how government's attitudes and media suppliers toward copyright will affect the content available on the Web. There is also the difference bewteen video and radio webcasters, the latter are usually smaller and not backed up by deep pockets. The Webcasting Worldwide book has discussed the implication of copyright on the future industry and researchers and practitioners alike must create a paradigm of the real meaning of copyright and how it should be pursued in the digital age.

IAB's User Generated Content Conference video coverage in Ad Age

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:00:00 +0000

IAB posted an interesting question in its User-Generated Content Conference: How should advertisers use user-generated content? Use it as an ad medium or use it to generate advertising messages? Ad Age has a video report on it with coverage from speakers of the conference. As advertising will play a significant role to fuel the development of Webcasting and user-generated content is a main feature of many webcasters, webcasting researcher and business practitioners should learn more about a good use of user-generated content.

Disney-ABC online success expels the myth about cannibalization of online videos on offline viewing and feasibility of direct payment of TV shows

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:58:00 +0000

The June 2007 issue of Fast Company reported Disney's success with its online offering of TV shows. Disney was the first media company to sell TV episodes on iTunes in October 2005 at US$1.99 per episode. In summer 2006, ABC is the broadcast network that stream full episodes for free on its web site with advertising. Since offering downloads on iTunes, Disney-ABC earned US41,790,000 with 21 million downloads. Grey's Anatomy, the top-rated TV show of ABC, increased 4.4 million audience after the episodes became available on iTunes and abc.com even though it's the most streamed ABC TV show online. Such numbers show that the myth of digital platforms cannibalizing TV platforms is unsupported. People who watched the show online usually were to catch the show they missed and they were the young consumers, average age is 28, that advertisers treasured most. The article's author attributed this to the presence of Steve Jobs on the board of directors at Disney. The new windows/platforms for an ABC Family Cable Channel show, Kyle XY, premiered last year, began with 1) free promotional video download on iTunes a week prior to the airing, 2) airing of the show on cable, 3) a cameo of the show at ABC broadcast network, 4) full episodes sold online at US$1.99 on iTunes, 5) episodes of the show onVerizon FioTV as ABC Family on demand at $39.99 a month, 6) free streaming on ABC.com with three 30-second commercials, 7) DVD release at US$40 for the entire season just before the start of season 2. This strategy is maximizing the access of the content to the audience. Ownership of products costs the most to the consumer. Direct payment is possible when value of ownership of the shows is established. The ACR business model here is high access, high cost content, and multiple revenue sources with a combination of a branded content model (in ABC.com) and a content aggregator model (in iTunes.com).

YouTube to TV set by Apple TV helps Google to land in the TV industry

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Thu, 31 May 2007 16:24:00 +0000

The Associated Press reported today that Apple TV user wil be able to access the popular YouTube service on their living room televisions through its video-streaming set-top-box, which is a slim, book-sized device streams movies and songs stored in the user’s iTunes personal library but can’t directly access Internet-based videos. According to Apple Inc., with the impending Apple TV feature, which will be available as a free software update, members of Google Inc.’s YouTube will be able to log on to their YouTube accounts right from their television set. Thousands of the videos on YouTube will be available at launch and more will be added each week until the full YouTube catalog is accessible on Apple TV this fall.
Today's Apple TV, quadrupling its maximum storage capacity with a 160-gigabyte hard drive. will be US$399.

What this means is that Google will now be able to officially get into the TV business, making its purchase of YouTube a good strategic move. More and more broadband/online only video services will join the YouTube and be available to regular TV screen sets. This is what we have discussed in the last chapter of the Webcasting Worldwide book on the future of Webcasting is not limited to the PC screen, but also TV sets and mobile phones. Think about the advertising attractiveness of those videos that will be streamed to regular TV sets to advertisers.

Webcasting go local and local webcasting go national/international

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:13:00 +0000

The recent news about CNN's cooperation with Internet Broadcasting is very significant to the webcasting industry. Now CNN's web site is going to show 70 local TV stations' news streams and local TV stations' web site will include CNN's stream means that they bring visitors to one another. No matter users chose to start with a local TV station site or CNN, they can get the same content. The resultant increase in news audience size will definitely boost advertising value to advertisers. Although no details are revealed how the revenue will be shared, it is clear that with CNN dropping premium services, advertising will become the main advertising source for its webcast. Let's see how receptive are advertisers to such double coverage and also the expanded scope of users from local to national/international or from national/international news to local.

Webcasting researchers beware: new research opportunity and redefinition of the audience scope of webcasting.

broadband trend predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:16:00 +0000

Broadband Directions, a research and consulting company, gave its 7 broadband trend predictions for 2007. Most of the predictions can be summarized as a remake of the broadcast business models to Webcasting except the iTV box and Google. Here are my responses to these predictions:

1. "Apple's iTV box will likely succeed." My response: The concept of iTV is great especially bringing broadband video online to TV set. But Apple's notorious non-open product strategy make it unlikely to be adopted quickly. But its launch may push either IPTV to move faster or other competitiors to come up with devices that tap onto the potential rich audio and video inventory on the Web.

2. "All eyes on Google." My response: Why Google is on the spotlight is because of its superiority in the search technology, which is essential in the navigation of the cyberspace. If no one dare to compete on search, yes Google will be the ruler of the Web and online media content.

3. "Ad-supported video dominates (at least for now)." My response: Advertising is important for high traffic sites. For niche sites, ad-support is not the solution or cannot be counted as primary source of income.

4. "Syndication grows in importance." My response: It's a very natural rational use of resources. TV's syndication is built on a good library of video and a large demand for quality programming. The Web also needs the library and accumulation of content will faciltiate syndication.

5." Community-building around video goes mainstream." My response: While many celebrate the success of YouTube, another question is how many "YouTube" can the market accept. There's a firstmover advantage here. YouTube improved over many primitive user-generated video sites such as StupidVideos. Being the first successful one is great, being the second or other copycats can only do that much. Ideas are the still the crucial element to success in user-generated video, as I emphasized in the Webcasting book in chapter 3.

6. "Brand marketers score with broadband video." My response: Advertisers will try everything that works. Broadband video is a novel idea still so one can exploit its novelty. Once its novelty appeal is over, how to sustain a broadband video campaign may be very interesting to see. Entertainment value and consumption pariticpation are the key to their success.

7. "Legitimate P2P gains traction." My response: Peer-to-peer does not constitute ownership but sharing of owned content. Who should be compensated for the efforts for providing the infrastructure? If the purpose of sharing is for sampling or promotion, then the compensation should come in the ultimate purchase of the legal copy. The public good characteristics of media products, especially online content, conduce sharing. Unless restrictions to access are enforced, then P2P can only contain non-valuable content that don't mind to be shared without any property rights. I am worrying about the quality of P2P content and its role in the media value chain.

I am a bit disappointed at no mention of non-profit organizations' role in the shaping of broadband video trends.

webcasting business model

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:19:00 +0000

webcasting business model

Below are collection of questions from COMS729 Globalization, Convergence and Strategic Media Management course graduate students at Bowling Green State University on different country chapters of the Webcasting Worldwide book:

Date: Wed Nov 29 2006 12:04
Author: Baumann, James Anthony <jbauman@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Canada

Martin, C., Allagui, I., & Chaussé, M. (2007). Webcasting in Canada: The imbedded media. In L. S. Ha & R. J. Ganahl III, Webcasting worldwide: Business models of an emerging global medium. (pp. 69-88). Mahwah: NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

In chapter 4, Martin, Allagui, and Chaussé (2007) discuss the history of webcasting in Canada. Martin et al. begin the chapter by first discussing the history of communication technology in Canada starting from the railroad, advancing to radio, then television, and finally progressing to the personal computer. In the study, the authors performed a content analysis of 20 webcasters in Canada to determine the characteristics and reach of the corporations. Martin et al. does note that the corporations analyzed are probably not the top 20 webcasters in the country because the data to verify this does not exist. Upon analyzing the design, content, and revenue sources of the businesses, the authors concluded that webcasting is not an industry in itself and that webcasting sites are integrated into the larger portfolios of media conglomerates. Martin et al. also accept their hypothesis, which states “webcasting technology is not disruptive enough to alter the general equilibrium of Canadian cultural industries because what is called a webcast is quite similar to what is now broadcasting.” (p. 86) Martin et al. conclude the chapter by posing two questions regarding the future of webcasting, the first dealing with the aspect of copyright laws in regard to internet diffusion, while the second questions the effect of communication technologies on societies.
My question concerning this reading derives from the later posed by the authors asking, “what is the effect of communication technologies on societies?” The authors approach the question by asking if their should be rules against the dissemination of content from larger nations to smaller nations due to the possibility of destroying culture. I question the effectiveness of implementing such a strategy due to what I believe would promote isolation among cultural groups worldwide. Do cultural groups benefit by restricting the cultural content of other cultures from reaching its people? Personally, I believe this would promote isolation between cultural groups, ultimately adding unneeded tension between groups that are tenuous already. I do believe that regulation needs to be in place to ensure an equal exchange of cultural products; however, I believe regulation restricting communication technologies from reaching potential audiences will only add fuel to an already burning fire.

Date: Wed Nov 29 2006 13:07
Author: Biesalski, Constance <constab@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Germany

The authors say that increased broadband penetration encourages additional broadband-dependent offerings, such as web TV (webcasting, respectively), which further drives broadband adoption. They consider this to be the only factor throughout the chapter.Are there any other factors that influence the growth and the popularity of webcasting, webTV and video/audio offerings? Can you think of any other ideas and incentives to push the webcasting market that are beyond broadband adoption as the decisive variable?Furthermore, as stated by the authors, it is more likely that webTV in Germany will develop a completely new market with niche products and that the market will be characterized by an international target group operating under globalization. Do you think this is the right strategy and why do you think it has been chosen instead of focusing on the German audience?

Author: Cruea, Mark Douglas <mcruea@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Greece

Greece – Arampatzis
Arampatzis characterizes Greece as a media market where TV dominates and the Internet is closer t to the bottom of the media landscape in terms of usage and penetration due to cultural reasons, high connection costs, and poor infrastructure. This chapter then proceeds to discuss various aspects of Greek media including print media, television (he even makes a reference to “non-pubic television outlets” p. 195). Television was state-controlled until 1989 when private television became available.

In addition, Arampatzis discusses the legal framework for Greek media. Specifically, he examines Greek legislation that requires commercial stations to provide high quality programs, objective information, and news reports, and promote cultural development. Other legal issues involve the question of who controls media and their involvement in government contracts.

Moreover, Arampatzis looks at Internet penetration, which for Greece, is among the lowest in Europe. However, Greece has achieved significant growth in the field of digitization since 2000.

Given the proceeding discussion, the bulk of the chapter is devoted to webcasting business models and revenue sources. In regard to business models, Arampatzis examines ten businesses. His findings indicate that there are one to two well-developed companies while the rest are hindered by the underdeveloped infrastructure and lack of clear business strategies. Many local professionals were even unaware of the term webcasting. Most leading Greek webcasters are bricks-and-clicks resulting in content that is not original. Rather, content is generally repurposed material or part of a simulcast. Content is also dominated by Anglo-Saxon productions.

Revenue is largely generated by advertising and content syndication. Only one company in the top ten (Mad.TV) opened up to ecommerce by selling CDs, DVDs, and other entertainment-related merchandise. In general, Greek webcasters were very reluctant to employ a subscription scheme because of an immature market. CNN.com was an exception.

Question: Given Greece’s strong television and radio industries, is there a way to involve these existing media, with government assistance, in developing a stronger infrastructure to help increase penetration into the market? Once the penetration has increased and the infrastructure is in place, it seems like businesses might have a friendlier environment within which to operate.

Date: Mon Nov 27 2006 14:17
Author: Famiglietti, Andrew Anthony <afamigl@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: United States

Com 729
Questions for Ha and Ganahl Chapter 3

Summary: This chapter provides an overview of radio and video webcasters in the U.S. and their associated revenue streams. The data provided show several patterns. First, video webcasters show more diversity of business type and content source. Video webcasters show at least some presence of clicks and bricks and ISP businesses, and original and repurposed content, whereas radio webcasters were completely pure-play businesses using simulcast content. Both video and radio webcasters show a diversity of content delivery strategies (including live streaming and on-demand downloading) and revenue sources (pay-for-play, advertising, and e-commerce). Webcasting insiders interviewed suggested that they believed the potential of their industry lay in providing content users wanted but were unavailable to them on terrestrial networks, and that the threat of cannibalization of terrestrial broadcast by webcasting was overblown.

Questions:

-How do we think webcasters that have emerged since this chapter was written – such as YouTube – compare to the webcasters profiled here?
-The chapter discusses the chicken and the egg dilemma of broadband internet and webcasting. What do we think? Will webcasting drive broadband demand, or will the availability of broadband drive webcasting demand?
-What does the relationship between broadband and webcasting suggest about the relationship between users and new media?
-What do we think about non-profit webcasters? Are they important in the “long tail” or is the methodology of the chapter correct in ruling them out as important forces in webcasting? What factors might change this? Could municipal broadband (if ever deemed legitimate) get local governments involved in non-profit webcasting?

Author: Igboaka, Primus Chuks <primusi@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Ha & Ganahl (2007) Ch. 16 South Korea

Comments: Very interesting article gives a general overview of developments in the
webcasting business from Korea’s perspective. The author was detailed, however uses terms that were not explained in several places assuming that readers will be very familiar with them. For example, IPTV, KISDI, BBS (online), NHN, ON Media, CJ Media, SBSi, KBSi, iMBC, EBS, PSB, TGMBC, the list goes on and on. These initials were repeated several times without clues to the average reader as to what they mean! Regrettably, the author assumes that these initials are already known to the readers. I found the authors effort not to explain them to be distracting to comprehension of the article – at least to some point

Q1: If there are few internet rating companies that report on internet traffic (p.322), how
does the author guarantee that statistics used in this article are accurate? I talk from the
experience of a citizen of developing country where getting these data are difficult and
available data are either inflated or under-reported or both.
Q2: What are the secrets to South Korean’s fast development in internet/ broadband
technology and webcasting? What could developing countries learn from their business
innovation in this field of internet technology and webcasting?
Q3: The author disclosed that “Click & Bricks” business model is the most successful in
terms of revenues and number of visitors to the web (322). But at the same time in pg 323,
the author indicated that among the 20 webcasters in the study, that 12 used the branded
content model, while 8 were content aggregators. If the portal sites domination of
websites in Korean seems to be the universal trend (p.323) and assuming that the Metrix
Corporation internet site ranking data were right, does this signify that most Korean
Webcasters don’t make profit, since most of their business models do not favor the one (Click & Bricks) that give the revenue and most web consumers’ traffic (p.324)?

Author: Kavathe, Rucha Satish <ruchak@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: United Kingdom

Arampatzis: United Kingdom
In my research on digital television in Europe, UK came across as a frontrunner in policy and implementation, which is why I thought it would be interesting to look at webcasting in Uk as well.

As far as accesibility goes, United Kingdom is one of the frontrunners in the webcasting world right now with 59% of the population having access to internet and webcasting is a part of a variety of media industries like newspapers, television and radio. UK has adopted a strong digital, new media and online policy and because they do not have problems of slow speed, there is a wide variety in content irrespective of webcasters' nature as pure-play or clicks and bricks.
Content strategies in UK suggest that a large percentage of content originates from abroad (50%) including BBC. The author attributes this to the dynamism of the English as a people and the reach of English as a language.
Revenue was one of the most interesting aspects of this paper. The UK government supports new technology and has invested heavily in content and infrastructure. One of the top revenue sources for these websites is advertising, however, BBC online is the undisputed leader among UK media websites, and being a public broadcasting corporation cannot use advertising on its website. the other companies are said to recover upto 90% from advertising.
My question is, how can other public broadcasters replicate the success of BBC online without the financial backing it receives from public and private sources?

Author: Merrill, Stephen A <smerril@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Italy and the United States to a degree

I really liked the chapters on the United States and Italy, they have parallels that are kind of uncanny, Bonini states on page 179: Unlike American radios which looked at simulcasting as a way to "bring back home" all those listeners who were members of a local community, but had to live "elsewhere" on a regular basis this centripetal aspect seems to be absent from simulcasting in Italian local radios, possibly because of the different geographic and cultural configuration of our country in which distances do not seem as endless as they do in the US and in which people do not seem to to have made the culture of perennial mobility their own.Could it be said that there is an entirely differently approach to individual identification between Italy and the US? Where in the United States we may identify ourselves first by our local and regional affiliation rather than a national identity. As a nation the United States has such a dominant commercial market that the only way to establish a media identity is to adopt a local identity as a primary identity.Also, while taking Everything into consideration, Free radio in Italy seems to have greater diversity in its offerings than the rather homogeneous US market, when in the US if so many outlets offer the same type of programming that you can take Program A and carry it across market F, G, etc.... A branded management approach emphasizing the local content must be implemented for station survival.Secondly, the United States with such a high rate of broadband penetration, simulcasting is seen as a complement (or a Substitute) for stations to reach their intended audience, for people that utilize a computer frequently with work it can be a good outlet to listen to their desired media. (on a side note, if I had to listen to an easy listening sound track at work through the office pipes I would escape to the internet and I would rather listen to a local station of MY CHOICE that provides the content I want with the information I want)Third, the United states seems more geared towards very solitary activities, there is not a greater sense of community when you travel outside of your home jurisdiction so the desire to connect with your "Home" is very strong, whereas Bonini seems to indicate that Italians do not face the same issues. I found it very interesting.

Author: Merrill, Stephen A <smerril@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Italy and the United States to a degree

Another thing. I realize this may be a newer service than when this study of the United States was conducted, but did you come across http://www.Pandora.com a project by the Music Genome project, it seems to be garnering a lot attention and wondered if you had compared it to other pure-plays based in the United States.

Author: Szalvai, Eva <evas@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: on Spanish webcasting

Do you think that with the slow start in the Spanish webcasting market and the recent acceleration of deregulation and decentralization in Spain, we can expect a leapfrog in the proliferation of this emerging media? (For: consider the emerging power of Spanish language and growing cultural sharing in the Hispanic world; Against: collectivistic Mediterranean culture specifics)

online video ads trends

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:25:00 +0000

Digital MediaWeb Video Takes Off, Ads Trail

by Louis Hau, 09.20.06, 6:00 AM ET originally posted on Forbes.com

Years after it was originally supposed to arrive, Internet video is here and making up for lost time. Steve Jobs has made it the focus of Apple Computer's new strategy. Nearly every major media outlet is obsessed with figuring it out. And video file-sharing site YouTube, non-existent two years ago, now has buzz rivaling that of the original Napster.

So it makes sense that ad dollars should follow the new medium. Market research firm eMarketer predicts that U.S. online video advertising is expected to total $385 million in 2006, up 71% from a year ago. That's more than twice the growth rate of overall U.S. online advertising spending, which is projected to reach $16.7 billion this year, up 34% from last year. Online video advertising could hit $1 billion by 2010, says JupiterResearch.

But advertisers and Internet video aren't a perfect match yet. The main problem: While Internet users now seem happy to watch clips on their computers--a recent poll says that half of them have done so--they may not be watching the kind of stuff that marketers want to buy ads on. YouTube boasts that it has stored 100 million video clips on its site, but the anything-goes nature of them--home-brewed stuff mixed with clips of copyrighted, unauthorized material--makes some advertisers wary. Meanwhile, professionally produced content you can find at established Web sites has a harder time drawing eyeballs.
"Advertisers and Web publishers have been waiting for consumers to watch--it's been a pretty slow build,'' says Jeff Lanctot, vice president and general manager of Internet advertising agency Avenue A/Razorfish, a subsidiary of aQuantive. "The interest and demand of online advertisers has outpaced that of online consumers."It's a point of view seconded by Greg Stuart, the Interactive Advertising Bureau's outgoing chief executive."The big stumbling block now is continued consumer adoption of video online,'' Stuart says. "If you talk to the online publishers, they say they cannot get enough video impressions to sell. There's not enough relative to marketer demand.''

Ian Blaine, co-founder and chief executive of thePlatform, a Seattle provider of digital media services says some advertisers have told his clients that they would buy far more advertising if only the clients had enough impressions to sell. It's a problem rooted in both the need to digitize more content as well as in the difficulty of drawing the critical mass of viewers necessary to make major ad deals worthwhile, he says.

"For a big campaign to work, they need 100 million unique impressions,'' he says."That's sort of a bar for it being interesting. There are plenty of people watching video. The challenge is where are they watching it. It isn't a lack of eyeballs but a lack of aggregated eyeballs."Meanwhile, the relative scarcity of online video ad inventory has caused the cost per thousand impressions to climb about 15% to 20% this year, estimates James Kiernan, vice president and associate director of digital media and innovation at MediaVest USA in New York.While a 30-second ad during a prime-time broadcast TV show typically fetches a CPM rate of about $20, a 15- or 30-second online video ad currently commands a CPM of around $20 to $50, Kiernan says.Another stumbling block for mainstream advertisers is figuring out what kind of ads a Web user can stomach. Most of the video on the Web runs for just a few minutes. That means most Web sites with video content dare not tack on more than one "pre-roll" ad, which run before the clip itself, for fear of scaring off viewers. And some advertisers won't use the ads at all.
Toyota Motor's Scion subsidiary is an intriguing holdout, considering that its target market of 18- to 30-year-olds makes up an important chunk of the online audience. But while Scion's marketing team will sponsor concerts, film series and even video game competitions, pre-roll online video ads aren't part of the strategy, says Adrian Si, the company's interactive marketing manager.

Focus group surveys suggest that Scion customers frown on being forced to watch an ad before a movie preview or whatever video content they're trying to watch, he says. "We feel that's just way too intrusive."

But online video gives advertisers some distinct advantages. It generally offers advertisers a more precise way to reach consumers than television does. In addition, online video is what marketers dub a "lean-forward" medium, reaching viewers who are actively engaged with what's appearing on their computer screen rather than slumped on a couch. Video ads, which are usually paired with a nearby banner ad that viewers can click for more information, typically enjoy very high click-through rates, says Patrice Varni, director of Internet marketing for Levi Strauss.The company uses a combination of pre-roll video as well as animated banner ads featuring video content. "We feel we get a consumer who engages with us more deeply,'' Varni says. "It takes it one step further than TV.''
And plenty of conventional advertisers are willing to pay up as well. Chase Card Services, a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, has advertised on Time Warner's CNN.com and Reuters.com. The company likes online video ads because it provides an appealing alternative to banner ads, which often have to vie with many other ads on the same Web page to gain the attention of Web surfers, says Manning Field, senior vice president of branding and advertising for Chase Card Services."The fact is pre-roll is not cluttered when you compare it to other types of environments," he says. "Usually, there aren't five or six ads. It's usually as an exclusive sponsor."And sites that specialize in YouTube-style "user-generated content" have been seeking ways to accommodate marketers' concerns. For instance, video-sharing website Revver categorizes all of its content to enable, say, a skateboard maker to advertise on skateboard videos. Revver video ads don't appear as pre-rolls but rather after the conclusion of a video clip. Even then, a viewer must click to start the ad. "You can get very, very targeted advertising opportunities, really take it to a very fine granularity,'' says Revver founder and Chief Executive Steven Starr.Revver videos can be embedded in other Web sites, which allows advertisers to take advantage of popular video content that spreads virally. Starr says that "allowing content to move freely across the Internet and monetizing the content wherever it goes'' is where the future lies."The redistribution of the file itself is where the business is heading,'' he says.Meanwhile, YouTube, the kingpin of user-generated content sites, has set up "brand channels" for advertisers. General Electric's NBC Universal, Warner Music Group and News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting Group have been among the first to sign up, using YouTube as an advertising vehicle without directly associating themselves with content they hadn't produced themselves. And this week Warner Music has signed a revenue sharing agreement with YouTube.

Online video statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:37:00 +0000

webcasting business model

Posted by Peggy Miles in Webcasting Digest

The market for online content services worldwide is expected to expand by a
factor of 10, growing from about 13 million households during 2005 to more
than 131 million households by 2010, reports
<http://www.instat.com/press.asp?ID=1722&sku=IN0602973CM> high-tech market
research firm In-Stat <http://www.in-stat.com> (via
<http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle
&art_aid=46364> MediaPost). Of all broadband households today, 12.8 percent
are already regularly viewing professional content via online content
aggregators. The number of broadband households is expected to double
between 2005 and 2010, to more than 413 million
In-Stat's research, "Online Content Aggregators - AOL, Google, Yahoo!, MSN,
Apple - Slowly Defining the Future of Television," covers the worldwide
market for online video services. The report asserts that consumers will
very soon be able to access, on demand, a vast store of video programs.
In-Stat predicts that this consumer-controlled delivery will be dominated by
major content aggregators like AOL, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Apple.
"The future of television is slowly being defined online, where the big
internet portals are finding ways to blend professional video with their
high-touch services that follow consumers from screen to screen during the
course of a typical day," says report author Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat
analyst.
"AOL, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Apple, major broadcast TV networks, pay-TV
services and local TV stations are all working on ways to blend their video
assets with personalized TV services."

Some new user-generated webcast services

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:01:00 +0000

Broadsnatch: http://www.broadnatch.com
Eyeka: http://www.eyeka.com
Gkko: http://www.gkko.com
vSocial: http://www.vsocial.com
Guba: http://www.guba.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com (claimed to serve 40 million videos a day).

US Broadband Consumption

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 16:01:00 +0000

Broadband Market Still Poised for Growth› › › Broadband
By Enid Burns, June 2, 2006

Despite talk of a slowdown in broadband adoption in 2005, high-speed Internet access reaches 60 percent of U.S. households. According to "Broadband Access and Services in the Home 2006," a report released by Leichtman Research Group, the market can expect continued growth.
Forty percent of current narrowband, or dial-up, subscribers say they want to upgrade to a broadband account. Barriers to adoption, such as cost and availability in rural areas, no longer keep narrowband users from upgrading to high-speed.
"The number of broadband subscribers in America will nearly double [in the next five years], so there's a huge opportunity," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for the Leichtman Research Group. "With lower entry prices, particularly with DSL, the migration from dial-up is much quicker than many expected."
Cable holds a lead in the number of subscribers. An earlier report released by Leichtman said cable operators supplied 25.8 million broadband subscribers, and DSL serviced 20.2 million out of 46 million high-speed Internet subscriber accounts. The 46 million subscribers account for 94 percent of the market.
Cable subscribers tend to be in households with higher incomes, according to the report. Thirty-seven percent of households with annual incomes over $75,000 subscribe to cable versus 27 percent of DSL subscribers. Of households earning $30,000 to $75,000, 21 percent subscribe to DSL, and 18 percent to cable.
"Income is the greatest predictor of broadband penetration, and cable does very well among the high-income groups," said Leichtman. "Where DSL has performed very well in the past year is in the middle class where they have taken a market share lead over cable."
Data are based on a telephone survey of 1,600 randomly selected households from throughout the U.S. Additional data are derived from provider-side research.

source:
www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/broadband/article.php/3610546

New Online Video Consumption Statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Tue, 30 May 2006 19:52:00 +0000

*Video Consumption Up Heavily: comScore*
ClickZ News*
By Zachary Rodgers<http://www.clickz.com/experts/contact_author/index.php/11093_3608446>
May 24, 2006
The number of Internet users watching video online grew an impressive 18
percent between October 2005 and March 2006. That's according to comScore's
first ever analysis of U.S. Web users' online video viewing habits, drawn
from its new Video Metrix service.
In March, U.S. Internet users initiated a total of 3.7 billion video content
streams; and they watched an average 100 minutes of video content each
during the month, compared with 85 minutes back in October.
Men initiated 52 percent of those streams, women 48 percent; splitting
genders along roughly equal lines. But men spent far more time with the
content, averaging two hours of viewing time during the month, compared with
women's hour-and-twenty. Not surprisingly, males 18 to 34 were most
engrossed with online video, averaging 140 minutes of video consumption.
But while certain demographic sets consume more video than others, the
report's biggest surprise is that people from all ages and walks of life are
eating it up, according to Erin Hunter, comsCore's EVP of media and
entertainment.
"There are skews by age, but there isn't any group that's not doing it," she
said. "It's not just college kids. It's also the older demographic, and
clearly it's males and females both. In terms of content, we see
entertainment and sports and news all with pretty strong rates of
viewership."
Additional data from comsCore's Video Metrix service includes that 16
percent of video consumption takes place during prime time hours, and 22
percent on the weekend. Forty-two percent of Web users watch video on an
entertainment site, and about 33 percent watch on a portal. In a blow to
human resources managers everywhere, the workplace is the favored
environment for watching video. People spent about an hour a month watching
from work environments.
comScore's new Video Metrix service will provide customers with monthly
reporting on the demographics and video consumption habits of
U.S.-basedInternet users, presenting interactions with both content
and ads. The data
are drawn from comScore's existing technology and panel of 1.5 million
Internet users, though the video data comes from a smaller subset.

posting articles/references for webcasting here

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Wed, 24 May 2006 19:11:00 +0000

Please post your articles or reference on webcasting in this blog.

welcome to the webcasting worldwide book

noreply@blogger.com (Louisa Ha) — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 17:39:00 +0000

welcome. Please use this blog to express your view about the Webcast industry.