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Repurposing Web TV
[Mon 07/07/2008 03:38:48]
By Rachael Turk
Current.tv, Hulu.com, BBC iplayer, joost, Apple TV, iTunes, veoh, Revver, YouTube and now Adobe TV. Day by day, the number of internet TV sites increases exponentially. And it’s by popular demand.
A recent report by Nielsen Online has confirmed that, for the first time, the amount of time Australians are spending online has surpassed the amount of time watching television, with 58 percent of internet users saying they have watched TV online. Meanwhile, the BBC’s iPlayer, which made downloading or streaming programs to a PC a legal and mass-market pastime to licence holders, has reportedly had more than 42 million programs accessed via the catch-up TV service.
In the past year, the US TV networks have responded by making parts of their prime-time schedule available as a free webstream the day after broadcast. But it’s more than just a case of putting the same content on a different platform. What’s appealing to viewers is that the web, by its very nature, puts the shaping of content in their own hands.
Some sites and brands see the benefits of keeping content on their own site, so as to build a qualitative relationship with a niche audience. Others take a “go where they are” approach, maximising existing sites and established user habits, such as the widespread usage of YouTube.
Increasingly, some are doing both.
On April 10, Lonely Planet launched a channel on YouTube comprising the best travel videos from Lonely Planet’s own video-sharing website, LonelyPlanet.tv (a mix of Lonely Planet originated content and travellers’ own uploads, for which LonelyPlanet.tv pays US$500 for its favourites). Lonely Planet uploads to the YouTube channel two to five clips each fortnight, each clip running between two and five minutes. There is also an intention to promote Lonely Planet’s forthcoming long-form TV series on the YouTube channel.
According to Laurence Billiet, head of Television for Lonely Planet, the company’s YouTube channel has “a strong focus on entertainment and inspiration – whereas the lonelyplanet.tv site also features informative travel videos, the kind you would watch before travelling to a destination.”
As such, it garners the best of both worlds: niche and populist. “lonelyplanet.tv’s community differs from YouTube’s in that it is closely aligned to Lonely Planet’s own ethos. It’s a group of passionate, curious people who believe travel is a positive thing and a key part of growing up. They’re incredibly supportive of each other. You can see it in the comments they leave on the site. YouTube reaches into a much broader audience, and that’s great but it probably has a less cohesive community.”
As internet service providers begin to roll out the second wave of US broadband services (25 times faster than current broadband offerings), the useability of web TV will only increase. Users won’t have to wait for content to load – video on demand, literally, but on a user’s terms.
Taking online television one step further, April 28 saw the launch of an inventive site Blinkbox.com, which lets users make ‘blinks’ (film mashups) from existing films that they can then send direct to their friends’ PCs and mobiles along with a personalised message. Aside from the infinite mashups that can be created and bring people back to the website (a seriously smart media plan), users can download and rent movies for realistic money. That is, the content is being distributed both in its original form at a price and through more subtle, potentially infinite forms through play.
Although the business models are still evolving, the key lies in consumer behaviour. Making content easily accessible – both in terms of access and price – gives more incentive for purchase rather than piracy. In late April, Hulu.com, which had restricted sharing of its video content, set up a YouTube channel for clips that have embedded Hulu ads.
Short-clip videos suit the way people are now using the internet: they’re light entertainment, require a short attention span and can be served using the current streaming capacity.
Moonlight TV has noted that, although users are committing to full-length TV shows, they aren’t watching entire episodes in one hit. Accordingly, Moonlight divides its content into segments of seven to ten minutes – roughly what you’d see between ad breaks on free-to-air. Viewers are typically watching one or two segments per visit, averaging about 15 minutes a pop on the site. This is higher than five and a half minutes that is spent, on average, on news websites, signalling the start of a new user behaviour.
“New kinds of website, like Moonlight TV, are going to reveal a lot of new and unexpected audience behaviours,” says Greg Petherick, Moonlight TV’s general manager. “Online video is about a lot more than just the content itself. There’s a whole site experience for visitors. They are watching a video but they’re also visiting a website and engaging with a brand.”
The real issue is discovery. And that is better achieved on the web. Broadcast networks are programmed by professionals, but content on the internet is organised by audiences themselves.
“There is something really subversive about online TV,” says Billiet. “In some ways it removes the filter of traditional TV execs and empowers clued-in people to broadcast themselves. It’s democracy on air.”
Links
www.lonelyplanettelevision.com
www.youtube.com/lonelyplanet
www.moonlighttv.com
www.blinkbox.com
tv.adobe.com
This article appeared in IF #110 June 2008
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