99-Cent TV Shows

Last year saw Apple aggressively pushing for television studios to offer the latest episodes of their biggest shows for rental through iTunes for the low price of just 99-cents. Steve Jobs, who has now resigned as CEO of the company, thought price would be the key in persuading people to rent rather than buy.

Unfortunately there were few takers. Of the big four networks only Fox and ABC were on board, with CBS and NBC opting out. Time Warner was vehemently against the idea of offering content so cheaply.

It seems consumers didn’t really take to the idea either. Then again, if the content had been there in the first place then perhaps things would have turned out differently.

Rental Option Disappears

The option to rent TV shows has now disappeared from iTunes, although movies are still on offer. The experiment lasted around a year but Apple and its content partners clearly felt it hadn’t had the impact they were all hoping it would. Consequently, it is no longer an option.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD:

“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows. iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”

As suggested, this is likely a result of iTunes Replay, or iTunes in the Cloud, which lets you watch content you previously purchased on any iOS device as well as Apple TV, Mac, and PC. Why bother renting when you can buy and continue to watch time and again across a range of products?

Conclusions

I can’t help feeling this was a missed opportunity, but by who I’m not sure. Perhaps the time of rentals is over, as we all now either want to own content outright or pay a monthly subscription fee to access it on demand as and when we want to. Which is surely Apple’s next trick.

[Via AppleInsider]

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Hulu Bids Incoming

The deadline for bidders to submit the figure they are willing to pay to acquire Hulu has reportedly been extended from until the end of the week. This is to allow potential buyers more time to study the financials of the company to ensure they stack up against the considerable asking price.

Hulu is looking for bids in the region of $2 billion, which would seem excessive when revenue has only just hit $500 million for the year and profitability is still some way off. There are also other questions being asked by those in the know, especially related to the longterm future of the business.

Future Failings

Hulu is nothing without content. Yes, it’s a well-known brand with millions of users in the U.S., 1 million of which have deemed the service good enough to pay the subscription fee required to receive Hulu Plus. But content is still king.

For Hulu the content all comes from the big media companies, and there are deals in place with the likes of CBS and NBC. But these aren’t deals that will run for ever, and in fact some are due to expire in just one year’s time. Even the longest is for less than five years.

When these do come to an end they will have to be renegotiated, and media companies have a tendency to display greed at these moments as they realize there is good money to be made in an online service that is actually working.

The new owner, whoever that may be, will have to be strong in order not to be bullied into signing one-sided deals. Unfortunately the content providers hold all the cards in such situations. Because they can, if they want, just threaten to walk away and take their ball content with them.

Conclusions

Whoever takes Hulu on is going to face some pretty serious challenges. But if they navigate these successfully then there is a good chance they’ll have bought wisely.

This element of risk does, however, increase the likelihood that a big player will be the eventual buyer, as the likes of Google and Amazon can afford to lose a couple of billion dollars. In the same way we don’t sweat losing $1 down the back of the sofa.

[Via Reuters]

Amazon Bidding For Hulu?

Hulu is up for sale, although most people don’t understand why its owners, Walt Disney, News Corp, NBC Universal, and Providence Equity Partners, want to sell what has so far been a successful venture and one that stands on the cusp of greatness as the online video sector grows ever larger.

Some companies, such as Microsoft, have fallen out of the running, but the likes of Google, Yahoo, and DirecTV are still in. Also rumored are Apple and a new contender in the form of online retailer Amazon.

Amazon stands to gain a lot from acquiring Hulu. It would add content to its Prime subscription service and be a great selling feature were the company to release an Android tablet designed to compete with the Apple iPad in the near future. Which is pretty much guaranteed at this point.

Whoever grabs Hulu looks set to pay somewhere in the region of $1 billion to $2 billion. Which is a huge sum of money, granted, but still doesn’t justify the sale in the first place. And it isn’t just laymen such as myself who think so.

Why Sell???

BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield has argued the case for its current owners to hold on to Hulu and questioned why they are even considering selling at such an early stage. In a recent blog post [via The Hollywood Reporter] he argues:

“We find it very hard to fathom why any media company would want to give up ownership of such a unique asset at such an early stage of growth. Hulu appears to be the perfect weapon for networks/content creators to embrace so they can grow revenues and profits, even if the current multichannel ecosystem becomes unglued over the next decade.”

“Media companies should be going out of their way to retain ownership of Hulu and allow it to flourish. The bigger Hulu gets, the more dollars it can pay content creators on an annual basis. While that may be true if it is owned by a third-party as well, being invested in Hulu and sacrificing near-term profits for long-term value creation appears far too compelling.”

It does appear as though the current owners are seeking short-term gains while completely missing the opportunity Hulu offers them in the long-term.

News Corp. has actually indicated it may retain its stake in the company, but the others all seem to want to get out while the going is good. Which makes no sense whatsoever for a growing entity such as Hulu.

Conclusions

I’ve struggled to understand why the current owners of Hulu would want to sell at this stage, but they seem intent on doing so for whatever fatuous reason. Their loss is going to someone else’s gain, and I wouldn’t bet against Amazon emerging victorious in this colossal auction.

Fox’s Eight-Day Delay

Fox recently instituted an eight-day delay between a show airing on television and being available to view online on Fox.com or on Hulu. The idea was to ensure only those who pay for the privilege get to watch these shows the day after transmission.

In reality, thanks to Fox only signing up one distributor before launch, the vast majority of people are being made to wait more than a week to catch up on the Web. Which most people who are very into their favorite shows just aren’t going to be able to do. Cue the obvious result of this doomed plan.

Viewers Respond… With Piracy

According to TorrentFreak, in the five days after the new authentication system was introduced, the number of downloads of both Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef more than doubled.

Sure, this isn’t the most scientific study ever conducted, but it’s clear evidence that people will very quickly turn to alternative sources when their first choice for viewing online is taken away. And the legality or otherwise of these sources isn’t a major concern for most individuals. After all, doesn’t everyone do it?

Conclusions

Who is the head honcho of Fox? One Rupert Murdoch, of course. And he really doesn’t like the impact the Internet has had on how we consume content. He’s already placed most of his newspapers behind paywalls, even though we can read the same news elsewhere for free, and now he’s trying to do the same with television.

It won’t work. It really is as simple as that. There will always be a way around the system, and this kind of move only serves to harm the networks.

I’m not saying piracy or file-sharing is correct or a good thing, necessarily. But it is what most people will do when they’re prevented from watching their favorite TV shows by legitimate means. The sooner Fox and others realize this the sooner they and their viewers will meet in the middle.

Content ID System

YouTube was absolutely awash with pirated movies and TV shows at one point, very early in its life. This is the reason various companies, most-notably Viacom, sued YouTube for a fortune. But Google voraciously cleaned YouTube up, and most media companies are now on board.

The Content ID system, which automatically detects the presence of copyrighted content when its digital fingerprint is provided, has helped immensely. But it’s not perfect, and some piracy is still occurring on the world’s most-popular online video destination.

Pirated Movies On YouTube

It has been claimed that at least 25 movies, including recent releases such as Cars 2 and Fast 5, were available to watch on YouTube in their entirety until the end of last week. Now, probably not, as the issue has been brought to YouTube’s attention and the site is no doubt doing all it can to rectify the situation.

How long these videos had been up is anyone’s guess, but 500,000 views for some suggests more than just a few hours. These weren’t great copies, however, instead having been recorded from a DVD or cammed from within a cinema. Which would indicate an amateur effort to say the least.

Still, with software enabling people to download videos from YouTube, this could have helped hundreds of thousands of individuals to avoid paying to see a film.

Conclusions

I’m not convinced this is a new issue, as has been suggested. Instead, I suspect this has been happening since YouTube disabled the video length upload limits for trusted users. From that point on any one of these people could upload a pirated movie to YouTube, as long as they were willing to risk being banned from the site.

Still, regardless of how long this has been happening, the fact remains that it has shown up some issues with Google’s Content ID system. It clearly isn’t a foolproof way of ensuring copyrighted material doesn’t make its way onto the site.

[Via PC Magazine]

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Google+ Hangouts

Google+ is the search giant’s latest foray into the world of social networking. And it’s already doing a lot better than their other attempts to enter the territory currently dominated by Facebook and Twitter.

One of the core features of Google+, and the reason Facebook fought hard for Skype integration itself, is Hangouts. This is group video chat with up to 10 people able to share a video chat together about anything and everything. Or more likely, nothing whatsoever.

Google+ Hangouts has had some YouTube integration from the beginning, but it has just been improved a great deal.

YouTube Video Integration

Now, as well as being able to launch videos within a chat and launch a live stream within a chat too, YouTube videos on the site are labeled with a Google+ Hangout button. This appears under the Share option, alongside Facebook, Twitter, Embed, and Email.

This may not seem like much but it could get people using Google+ in a big way. And many social networks suffer from a lack of maintained interest, with boredom quickly setting in if new features and activities aren’t provided on a regular basis. This could help prevent that from happening on Google+.

The big question for me is if social video viewing is something most people want to do?

Conclusions

I watch a lot of YouTube videos, partly for work, partly for entertainment. I also share the best one with friends and family occasionally. But do I want to sit and watch them with a group of people in a video chat, most of whom I barely know? The answer is a categorical no. I could, however, be in the minority.

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Amazon Instant Video Library

Amazon has recently penned deals with CBS and NBC which has helped push its digital video content beyond the 100,000 titles milestone for the first time. Unfortunately most of these titles are limited to Amazon Instant Video rather than Amazon Prime.

TechCrunch suggested this meant Netflix needed to Watch Out!, but at the moment Netflix is perfectly fine, thank you very much. The future may well see this situation change, however, which is likely why Netflix is expanding internationally and shoring up its U.S. business before Amazon has a chance to “flip the switch.”

Comparing Apples and Oranges

Some people seem to have got it into their heads, directly on the back of this announcement, that Amazon Instant Video is now beginning to rival Netflix, and that the latter should be looking over its shoulder for the competition about the stick a knife in between its shoulder blades. But this is nonsense.

Amazon Instant Video is an à la carte service whereby customers purchase individual titles for streaming. Which is more in line with what Apple offers on iTunes. Netflix, on the other hand, offers an all-you-can-eat service called Watch Instantly for a set monthly subscription. So we’re comparing apples and oranges here.

Amazon does have a similar service, Amazon Prime, which costs $79-a-year and includes other benefits. But there are only around 9,000 titles included in the Amazon Prime video library, which compares unfavorably to the tens of thousands Netflix offers.

Conclusions

Amazon can rightly be proud of the range of video content it now offers its customers. Amazon Instant Video is good competition to the behemoth that is Apple iTunes. But it’s no Netflix, and isn’t even trying to be.

However, were Amazon or Apple to decide they did want to beat Netflix by offering a cheaper all-you-can-eat service then they may be able to do so. After all, they now have the content in place and the lines of communication with those who own the content open.

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NMPA Boards YouTube Gravy Train

Unfortunately we’re not talking about Viacom here, which is continuing the fight against a YouTube which no longer effectively no longer exists. This despite the media giant having lost its case this time last year.

Instead, the foe which has become a friend is the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and its subsidiary Harry Fox Agency (HFA). These companies, along with a host of other small music publishers, joined a class action lawsuit against Google which claimed that youTube encouraged the uploading of copyrighted content.

The NMPA, which represents hundreds of songwriters, has now backed down after four long years of litigation, and according to the YouTube Blog has signed a deal with Google which suits both parties.

Full details of the settlement haven’t been disclosed but when a clip is found to contain music owned by the NMPA (using YouTube’s Content ID system), rather than being taken offline the relevant parties will be offered the chance to run ads alongside the video and earn royalties every time it is viewed.

The Bigger Picture

The bigger picture here is that YouTube is no longer the site it was back in 2007 when these complaints were originally made. Piracy was rife on the site at that time, whether encouraged or not, but it no longer is. And the world needs to move on.

The NMPA coming on board means that it’s really only Viacom holding out now, and I wonder how long until that company also decides it’s fighting a losing battle and that it would actually be better off joining the party rather than sitting on the sidelines bitching and moaning.

Conclusions

There is only conclusion to draw from this, which is that everyone wins. Seriously. The musicians and music publishers gain a new revenue stream, YouTube gets to keep established clips on the site, and users get to use music on videos they make.

I’m sure there will be some naysayers – cough Viacom cough – but most of us realize YouTube has grown up and evolved to become a place where piracy is no longer tolerated. If everyone works together then there is money to be made from advertising.

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Netflix’ Streaming Future

Netflix has made it clear that its future is one where streaming reigns supreme. DVDs are dead, folks, so get over it. Delivering movies and television shows over the Web to a range of devices is faster, cheaper, and more compatible with a rapid international expansion.

If the company is heading down this route, and it most certainly is, then it has to make its ‘Watch Instantly’ service the best it can possibly be. And that means catering to every group of people and every member of the family. Including the youngest members. After all, the children are our future, as someone once sang.

Children are often as geeky or even more geeky than their parents these days. After all, they’ve grown up in the Internet age, afforded the luxury of instant information other generations could only dream of. So Netflix would do well to look after them…

‘Just For Kids’ UI

That is exactly what the company has now done, debuting ‘Just For Kids’. This is a section made specially for children, with all the content they will love and that parents will be happy to let them watch collated into one category.

Rather than being organized by title, the content is organized by characters, as that is how kids recognize the shows they love and watch over and over again.

‘Just For Kids’ is friendly for all kids aged 12 and under, and it is going to be rolled out on all Netflix connected devices over time. For now it is only available on PC and Mac in the U.S. and Canada.

Conclusions

There are some commenters on the blog post suggesting that rather than making a separate section for kids that Netflix just improves the parental controls so that it’s less convoluted to restrict and release content on a regular basis.

That is clearly an issue that needs looking at, but ‘Just For Kids’ is a good start, introducing the youngest members of the family to the joy of online video at an early age.

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Mobile Video

Mobile video is a growing sector, with the number of people owning mobile devices capable of displaying video in high quality lurching ever upwards. As we all carry our smartphones with us pretty much everywhere we go content is needed to fill the gaps between taking calls and sending texts.

The question is whether anyone wants to actually watch movies or television shows on a screen that’s barely even a few inches in diameter? Google obviously thinks so, which is why it has updated its Android Market Videos app and rolled it out to smartphones.

Android Market Videos App

The Videos app is the official video player for Android Market movie rentals. It previously only worked on devices running Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) but has now been updated and rolled out to smartphones running the 2.2 and 2.3 versions of Google’s mobile operating system.

Once installed the Videos app gives you access to all movies rented through the Android Market, which can be bought for as little as $1.99. Rentals can even be saved locally to view offline, but once playback has begun it has to be completed within 24 hours.

The Videos app also deals with other videos, including YouTube content and clips you have recorded yourself.

Conclusions

I’m not convinced people will want to watch a movie on their phone at this point in time, especially one they have paid good money to rent. A tablet with a reasonable-sized screen, sure, but a smartphone? Really?

Luckily the Android Market Videos app does more than just allow you to rent movies, so even those who aren’t keen on that usage will find some worth in downloading and installing it. Assuming of course their phone is running Android 2.2 (Froyo) or higher.

[Via TechCrunch]

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