WATPA: FW: More People Are Watching Their Programs on the Web

*More People Are Watching Their Programs on the Web*
/Saul Hansell/ <javascript:void(0);>. *New York Times
<http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=318&pmid=7818&TS=1125010369&clientId=56233&VType=PQD&VName=PQD&VInst=PROD>*. (Late
Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Aug 1, 2005
<http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=572&VType=PQD&VName=PQD&VInst=PROD&pmid=7818&pcid=15921221&SrchMode=3>. pg. C.1

*Abstract* (Document Summary)

A watershed event in the development of *Internet video* was AOL's live
Webcasts of the Live 8 concert series earlier this month. Some five
million people tuned into the Webcast on AOL, where they could instantly
flip among the concerts in London, Paris, Philadelphia, Toronto, Rome
and Berlin.

For Alisha Davis, who joined MTV two months ago to anchor its afternoon
Web newscasts, the medium offers opportunities and challenges that
traditional television does not. With no fixed time slot to fill, her
afternoon Webcast can run anywhere from 10 minutes to 20 minutes,
depending on the news of the day. (That's far more than the three
minutes that the MTV network now devotes to its newscasts.)

''It takes time to teach consumers what they can do with this medium,''
said Kevin Conroy, the chief operating officer of its AOL Media Networks
Group. ''Now we are in a wonderful position to begin to expand to
longer-form content. New video programs will include a live music
performance series and a show where movie stars interview one another.
AOL is also scouring Hollywood to buy the rights to old TV shows and
movies it can fill with ads and show free on the Internet, said Mr.
Conroy, who sees the Internet starting as akin to the ultimate UHF station.

*Full Text* (1700 words)
/Copyright New York Times Company Aug 1, 2005/

For two decades, media company executives and advertisers have been
talking about creating fully interactive television that would allow
viewers to watch exactly what they want, when they want it.

It looks like that future may well be by way of the computer, as big
media and Internet companies develop new Web-based video programming and
advertising that is truly under the command of the viewer. As Americans
grow more comfortable watching programs online, Internet programming is
beginning to combine the interactivity and immediacy of the Web with the
alluring engagement of television.

The Nickelodeon cable network, for example, recently created TurboNick,
a free Internet service that offers 24-hour access to popular programs
like SpongeBob SquarePants and Jimmy Neutron. It offers some original
programs, too, because the young audience of Nickelodeon, which is owned
by Viacom, is increasingly spending time in front of computers.

CBS News, which has no cable network and is also owned by Viacom, uses
the Internet to offer video news updates and reports that do not fit in
the 30-minute time slot of ''CBS Evening News.''

And for America Online, offering a wide array of free video programming
-- from coverage of the recent Live 8 concerts to programs hosted by
business gurus like Stephen R. Covey and Tom Peters -- is a way to
attract an audience to its new Internet portal at AOL.com. AOL, a unit
of Time Warner, is also producing with the Warner Music Group an
Internet-based reality program called ''The Biz.'' It will seek to find
the next music mogul, according to people involved with the program.

For all of them, and many more media and Internet companies, investing
in new Internet video programming is a way to cash in on the demands of
advertisers who want to put their commercials on computer screens, where
new viewers are watching. And on many Web sites, viewers can't skip the
video commercials, the way they can when using TiVo and other video
recorders.

Of course, there have been bits of rough, jerky video on the Internet
for years. The new video services, however, can count on better software
and faster connections to deliver pictures that are nearly as crisp as
those delivered by a typical cable signal. This year more than half of
the homes with Internet access have high speed, or broadband, service.

''There is critical mass with high-speed Internet connections, so video
is a good user experience,'' said Jim Walton, the president of the CNN
News Group. ''And that means there can be critical mass for advertisers.''

With the cost of the network connections needed to broadcast video over
the Web falling and advertising rates rising, CNN, also a Time Warner
property, just replaced a small, fee-based Internet video service with
an expanded offering of free videos intermingled with commercials.

''Television is a very straightforward, passive, linear medium,'' said
Lloyd Braun, the former chairman of ABC's entertainment group, who now
oversees the development of a sprawling campus for Yahoo in Santa
Monica, Calif., that will largely be devoted to creating original video
programming for the Internet.

''What I find so compelling about the Internet is that it is not
passive,'' he said. ''It is a medium where users are in control, can
customize the content, personalize it, share it and tap into their
communities in a number of ways.''

Mr. Braun said he was exploring dozens of video ideas, including
original Internet programming in nearly every genre that has worked on
television: news, sports, game shows, dramas, sitcoms, even talk shows.
But these are likely to be made up of short video segments that users
can assemble to their liking rather than half-hour or hourly programs.
''If you try to do television on a PC you will fail, because television
does television very well,'' he said.

In addition to its own programming, Yahoo will feature programming from
others in its video search service and on its other pages. For example,
Yahoo is expected to announce today that it will add video clips from
CNN and ABC News, along with video ads, to its existing Yahoo News site.

A watershed event in the development of Internet video was AOL's live
Webcasts of the Live 8 concert series earlier this month. Some five
million people tuned into the Webcast on AOL, where they could instantly
flip among the concerts in London, Paris, Philadelphia, Toronto, Rome
and Berlin.

Three times as many people watched the televised version on MTV, but
many of them were dissatisfied with the way the network, a division of
Viacom, selected which songs to play and had its announcers talk over
the music. (AOL also offered users all sorts of commentary -- blogs from
backstage, user comments, photos -- but these were accessible alongside
the Webcast and did not interrupt the music.)

While MTV's TV network is being criticized, its new Internet video
service, MTV Overdrive, is being praised as perhaps the slickest attempt
yet to combine the packaging of television with the interactivity of the
Internet. With one click, users can view dozens of shows -- music video
collections, newscasts, artist interviews and supplements to MTV's
signature programs like ''The Real World.''

And with a second click, users can see the various segments that make up
those shows. They also can assemble a program of their choosing, mixing
and matching parts of any of those shows, as well as videos and older
programs from MTV's archive of thousands.

For Alisha Davis, who joined MTV two months ago to anchor its afternoon
Web newscasts, the medium offers opportunities and challenges that
traditional television does not. With no fixed time slot to fill, her
afternoon Webcast can run anywhere from 10 minutes to 20 minutes,
depending on the news of the day. (That's far more than the three
minutes that the MTV network now devotes to its newscasts.)

While she still begins each newscast with an upbeat rundown of stories,
Ms. Davis also understands that is not necessarily how Internet viewers
will watch the show.

''On a linear broadcast, you can refer to something that happened
before,'' she said. ''We can't do that. We'll set up a show for people,
but a lot of people will create their own show.''

''We always said, 'I want my MTV,''' said Judy McGrath, the chief
executive of MTV Networks. ''Today that means a very personal
relationship to whatever it is you are interested in, so you can talk
about it, you can generate it, and you can critique it.''

The flexibility of the evolving medium also applies to advertisers.

Services like MTV Overdrive typically show 15-second or 30-second
commercials -- which users cannot skip -- before viewers start watching
and then again every few minutes. Moreover, when a commercial plays on
Overdrive (and on many other new video services) a static graphic ad
from the same advertiser appears on another part of the screen. This
graphic ad remains even while the program plays. If users click on it,
it opens the advertiser's Web site.

''A commercial on broadband is emotional and impactful,'' said Matt
Wasserlauf, the president of Broadband Enterprises, which sells Internet
video ads. He said that Internet video ads already produced 100 times as
many clicks as static banners on Web pages.

An Internet commercial typically costs about $15 to $20 for each 1,000
viewers, nearly as much as broadcast networks charge. The price is high
because there is more demand from advertisers than there is Internet
video programming available. Broadband Enterprises estimates about $200
million will be spent on Internet video this year, up from$75 million
last year. That pales in comparison to the $65 billion or so spent on
broadcast and cable television advertising, but it is growing faster.

While much of the development of Internet video is now being driven by
advertising, there is a growing crop of pay-per-view and subscription
video services.

In the fall, CNN will introduce CNN Pipeline, a new fee-based Web
service that will give users a choice of four live video programs, as
well as access to its extensive archive of video clips. And CourtTV's
new $4.95-a-month service on the Internet lets users see as many as
three live trials simultaneously and also lets hard-core fans replay
testimony and arguments from dozens of past trials.

Already, half a million people pay to watch live Webcasts of Major
League Baseball games at $3.95 per game, or an unlimited package at
$14.95 a month. That's double the paying audience last year.

In time, industry specialists say, longer, more elaborate programs
created specifically for the Internet will also emerge. But how quickly
that happens may depend in part on the development of technology that
can play Internet video on television sets, on which people are used to
watching longer programming.

''It takes time to teach consumers what they can do with this medium,''
said Kevin Conroy, the chief operating officer of its AOL Media Networks
Group. ''Now we are in a wonderful position to begin to expand to
longer-form content. New video programs will include a live music
performance series and a show where movie stars interview one another.
AOL is also scouring Hollywood to buy the rights to old TV shows and
movies it can fill with ads and show free on the Internet, said Mr.
Conroy, who sees the Internet starting as akin to the ultimate UHF station.

One thing AOL will not offer on Webcasts is the most popular programming
from its Time Warner cousins, such as HBO and its shows like ''The
Sopranos'' and ''Sex and the City.''

''Everybody says why don't you have 'Sex and the City,''' Mr. Conroy
said, ''but 'Sex and the City' is already in first-run syndication on
Turner. It will be on the Internet some day, but for now there are
thousands of hours of programming that can't get on the air anywhere.''

*[Photograph]*
Alisha Davis anchors MTV's afternoon Web newscasts, which can run
anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. (Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/The New York
Times); When you select a featured video on HGTV.com, a commercial for
General Motors plays in the lower-left corner, and it can't be skipped.
(pg. C6) (Illustration by The New York Times)(pg. C1)
Received on Thu Aug 25 23:13:22 2005