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TiVo Hooks Up With Internet Video and Ad Sales Service

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 May 2006, 06:00 CDT

By David Lieberman

NEW YORK -- The wall separating televisions from Internet video is about to lose a few more bricks.

TiVo will unveil today a deal that will enable about 400,000 subscribers who have their machines connected via broadband Internet access to use their TVs to watch Web videos delivered by Internet video and ad sales service Brightcove. Specific programs to be offered -- possibly as early as June -- have not been named, but Brightcove clients include Discovery Communications, MTV Networks, Reuters, The New York Times, National Lampoon, SmartMoney and Farmers' Almanac TV.

Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire says, "You can expect music videos, news, lifestyle and health, and teen content."

Initially, the videos will be free, with most supported by advertising. Later on, some may require subscription fees.

TiVo and Brightcove are still working out some mechanics of the process. For example, it's unclear whether TiVo users will be able to sit at their TV sets and pick programs to download to their TiVo boxes or whether they'll have go to the programmers' sites to order them first. The videos won't be available to 4.4 million TiVo users subscribing via DirecTV.

The companies see the non-exclusive deal as a harbinger of things to come.

"We're in the early stages of a transformation where content on the open Internet reaches TV sets," Allaire says. "Over the coming years, there'll be an explosion of content."

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said, in a prepared statement, "The process of delivering Internet-based video to TiVo users will be significantly facilitated."

This is the second Web video-related announcement from TiVo this week.

On Monday, the company said that it is giving its subscribers with stand-alone TiVo boxes with broadband connections the opportunity to download long-form ads or ad-supported video.

"We're getting aggressive about getting TiVo users to connect to broadband," says Davina Kent, vice president of national advertising sales.

The service, called TiVo Product Watch, begins with 70 marketers offering video for 100 auto, entertainment, financial, lifestyle or travel brands. Clients include General Motors, Sony Pictures, LendingTree, Kraft Foods and Tourism Australia.

TiVo subscribers can either download specific material or have the TiVo digital video recorder automatically record all spots that meet certain search criteria.

To prevent the DVR's hard drive from being overrun with ads, pushing out TV shows, TiVo will program the DVRs to accept no more than five spots a week unless users override that command.

While the spots typically run from two to four minutes, sponsors can offer as much as an hour's worth of video.

(c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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