Broadcast goes online

Michael Jackson, the former head of Channel 4 turned US television executive, is to lead a new internet programming venture at Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp.

Mr Jackson has taken the role of president of programming at IAC, a major player in the internet sphere as owner of the Ask Jeeves search site, dating service match.com and Ticketmaster. New and old media companies are crossing paths as they seek to develop internet-based business models. While established content makers such as News Corporation are buying into web platforms such as myspace.com , IAC and others are looking for content to make their sites more popular.

Then

Mr Jackson said the venture would not just amount to “making soap operas and putting them on the web,” but would include user-generated content and original programming. He cited AOL’s coverage of the Live8 concerts and the viral success of “Lazy Sunday”, a Saturday Night Live sketch that built up a cult following via the web, as examples that IAC will follow.

“It just feels that compelling content can connect with an audience through the web in a way that was not the case a year ago. There is now an economic model to support it,” he said.

Via the Guardian

And why is this of importance?

Martin Burke can’t guarantee what time he’ll get home in the evenings: his work as a chartered surveyor and project manager in Nottingham tends to have unpredictable hours. That’s a problem, because his favourite TV programs, such as Little Britain and Top Gear, are broadcast at rigidly set times. But Burke, 33, doesn’t mind that. He is one of the millions of people who have embraced video on demand (VoD) - making it possible to watch whatever is available, at a time that suits him and his wife, not the network schedulers. When he gets home he can press a button on the remote control, and in NTL’s data centre on the M4 beyond Heathrow, a server will begin streaming the program he has chosen to his TV.

If his neighbours press the button one minute later to start watching the same program, they will get that program streamed separately. NTL says it has signed up 600,000 households since launching the service in January this year, and expects to hit 1m by next March.

In the US Time warner Cable reports that the avaerage home watches 30 VoD programmes a month, whilst Comcast has recorded a billion programmes downloaded so far this year.

From Television on your own terms

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