Professional Video Distribution
Remember when you used to wonder if anyone really needed 500 channels? Well how about a million channels available on demand? Combine all the channels produced professionally around the world, add historical archives, and make it all available through your cable provider's set-top box. We're also seeing new content available for paid subscription that might never make business sense as a stand-alone channel. Professional video options are changing, providing more choices and global reach from the comfort of your couch.
Download services
Apple introduced a movie store last week, selling 125,000 downloadable feature films in less than 7 days. iTunes users can subscribe to The Daily Show for $10 a month or download a Disney movie for about the same price. Amazon Unbox sells downloadable movies and TV shows for about the same price as DVDs, with a lower-priced rental option available.
Online streaming
Famous English soccer club Manchester United has its own television channel covering all its games. Fans can subscribe to MUTV and watch highlights and historical matches online. Spanish club Real Madrid offers live streaming of all matches over the web for 5 Euro a month. Fans all over the world can tune into matches and highlights from their favorite clubs, enabling new content not available via local operators.
Video on demand
As channel lineups become more crowded cable operators are looking to video-on-demand to tryout new content to a niche audience. Last year Comcast customers watched over 700 million hours of video on demand content.
A channel dedicated to Jewish culture might never be big enough for national distribution but over 50 new hours of professionally produced content is available on Shalom TV for $8 a month. World Wrestling Entertainment 24/7 is the most popular offering, helping wrestling fans get their historical and current fix for $8 a month.
Listen In
We cover these topics and more in this week's PodSession, Professional video distribution. The podcast is 19 minutes in length, a 9 MB download.