Dan Saunders, Head of Content Services at Samsung Europe, has told content owners that the CE company has to be paid to make Connected TV sustainable and to provide them with the incremental reach they are looking for with over-the-top services. Speaking at the Connected TV Summit he said there was no fixed policy on pricing and he called for content owners to come and talk to the company about partnerships.

“The content provider is our customer and we are delivering them a service and the service is incremental reach according to the number of devices we put in the marketplace. We have a platform that we maintain and improve and for providing that service we ask for a fee. There is no fixed policy in place; we have a very flexible approach and we are here to help content providers build their business. It is important for us that it works for the content provider but that it is sustainable.”

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At the D9 conference recently, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings credited his company with helping to beat piracy – at least in the U.S. Now, he says, the challenge is to outcompete copyright infringement in places like Korea, where it runs rampant.

“One of the things that we’re most proud of is we’re now finally beating BitTorrent,” Hastings told AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher.  Thanks to services like Netflix, Hastings said most Internet video is now paid for in the U.S. The hard part for content providers, he said, was coming up with a service good enough that people were willing to pay for, rather than just searching for free content on the Internet.  Netflix has been able to provide that service by making its streaming videos available across a vast number of devices, and giving subscribers access to a wide range of library content for a relatively low price.

Netflix has also enabled content owners to make money on shows they previously weren’t monetizing. Hastings offered up Joss Whedon’s Firefly as one example of a series that had a rabid fan base that couldn’t find it under legal means prior to appearing on Netflix.  At the same time, he quelled any rumors that the company could bring Firefly back from the dead.

“All of those actors are 10 years older and the sets are gone,” Hastings said about the show.  But he added that before Netflix brought it online, Firefly wasn’t getting monetized and now Fox is getting paid for it.

One other way Netflix can provide value is in offering up prior seasons of shows that are still on the air. “Mostly what we’d like to do is prior seasons of big shows,” Hastings said, suggesting networks like Showtime and HBO as examples of networks that it would like to have those series from. “We’re trying to be a complement to their business… We do better on catalog content than anyone else. Then that generates demand for current seasons.”

Hastings gave Dexter as one example of a show that benefited from having early seasons available on Netflix. By doing so, viewers were able to tune in to prior episodes, building buzz and interest in new episodes when they air. While Netflix has managed to get some content providers on board with this line of thinking, others are more wary. Fox, for instance, recently licensed the first season of its hit show Glee to Netflix, but at the same time it’s seeing networks like Showtime pulling back episodes of showls like Californication from the streaming catalog.

Later in the interview, Hastings said HBO’s The Wire was the one show that he’d most like to add to Netflix’s streaming library.  But it’s unlikely that The Wire – or any HBO show – will come to Netflix streaming anytime soon, as the premium cable network seems committed to driving pay TV ubscriptions through its TV Everywhere initiative.  “Their strategy is, if you want old HBO [shows], you subscribe to HBO and you have HBO Go,” Hastings said.

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SeeSaw, the online video service, is set to close unless a buyer emerges in the next month after its parent company deemed it too costly to keep running.

Arqiva, the broadcast transmissions group, appealed for a partner in February to help carry the cost of the service, but revealed yesterday that it had been unsuccessful. SeeSaw will be shut or sold by Arqiva’s financial year-end on 30 June.

A spokesman for the company said SeeSaw “no longer fits with the strategic direction in which we are taking Arqiva and requires considerable investment to succeed in an increasingly competitive market”. He admitted that the business was unlikely to find a buyer.

Arqiva created SeeSaw out of the ashes of Project Kangaroo, an online video-on-demand venture involving the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 which fell apart following regulatory issues.

The acquisition was masterminded by the then chief executive, Tom Bennie, who said it was an “opportunistic and strategic decision”. The site launched officially in February last year.

SeeSaw’s position had come increasingly under threat after Mr Bennie was replaced by a former ITV senior manager, John Cresswell, in January. The new head launched a strategic review of the whole group.

Following an initial restructuring of Arqiva, SeeSaw was moved in house, which prompted the departure of the site’s chief executive, Pierre-Jean Sebert, a former managing director of Eurosport in the UK, in March.

The Arqiva spokesman said: “SeeSaw was never a core business, it was more of a toe in the water. The industry has changed since we bought it, becoming more dynamic and competitive.”

He said that beyond marketing, the investment needed to develop the service on other platforms and devices was just too significant.

The site put up a message to its users yesterday informing them about its imminent closure: “As it will soon be ‘goodbye’ from SeeSaw, we’d like to take this opportunity to say a big ‘thanks’ for all your support, custom and loyalty over the last 16 months.”

source: the independent

Anthony Rose, ex CTO of YouView and BBC iPlayer, is now on a mission to reinvent lean-back TV so that we find content according to what our friends are watching rather than channel zapping, and can enjoy tightly synchronized, enhanced multimedia experiences around TV programming that make full use of companion screens.

As Co-Founder and CTO of tBone TV, he is helping to create a platform that understands what we and our friends are watching right now, regardless of the device and service being used. He emphasises that we must not ask much of consumers: this is still about ‘vegging’ in front of the TV, but it is ‘Veg 2.0’

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YouTube will imminently launch a movie-on-demand service charging users to stream mainstream Hollywood movies off the world’s largest video sharing site, TheWrap has learned.

The new service means a full-bore challenge to Apple’s iTunes service – currently the most powerful player in paid video streaming — and a welcome new revenue stream for Hollywood as home entertainment revenues continue their steep decline.

The service may start as early as this week or next, and is expected to be announced soon by YouTube.

Major studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal have licensed their movies for the new service, as have numerous independent studios, including Lionsgate and the library-rich Kino Lorber, according to movie executives with knowledge of the deals in place.

YouTube has been laboring to bring all the major Hollywood studios on board before announcing it, according to one executive involved in the deal. But so far Paramount, Fox and Disney have declined to join.

YouTube, which had earlier declined to comment for the story, issued a statement after this story was published, pointing out that it has rented movies for a year, while declining to comment on the broader initiative it is about to launch with the major studios on board.

“We’ve steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago, and now have thousands of titles available,” a spokesperson said. “Outside of that, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”

But in fact the video giant has never rented mainstream movies on this scale during the traditional DVD window. The major studios, who were once leery of YouTube, now see it as a potentially lucrative platform.

“We think it will start with VOD, but broaden to include sell-through over time,” said a senior executive at one Hollywood studio that has signed the deal with YouTube. “We are pretty excited because we are happy to see new entrants come in transactionally rather than a subscription model.”

The service is the biggest studio VOD deal since all the major studios signed on to Apple’s iTunes rental service in January 2008. Fox, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony, MGM, Lionsgate and New Line were all on board for that initiative. Apple charged as low as $2.99 rental fee for that service.

It was not clear what YouTube would charge. But it means the site’s 130 million monthly users will be able to pay to watch movies as they come out into the DVD market; it is the first serious foray by the Google-owned company into mainstream movies and charging money for video.

Read more at http://www.thewrap.com

Blinkbox, the video-on-demand outfit established by former Channel 4 New Media executive Michael Cormish and Vodafone’s former head of content Adrian Letts, has been acquired by the UK retailer Tesco. It’s the latest in a series of recent deals that have seen established names enter the connected TV market through the acquisition of start-up companies.

In January, Lovefilm was acquired for £200 million by Amazon, while in the United States Wallmart purchased video site Vudu for a reported $100 million.

Tesco will purchase 80% of Blinkbox from private investors Eden Ventures and Nordic Venture Partners. Terms have not been disclosed.

Blinkbox boasts 2 million visitors per month that have access to a mix of advertising supported and paid-for content that includes 9,000 movie titles and a number of TV series.

Already available on the Mac, PC and Playstation 3, Blinkbox has plans to appear on Samsung connected TVs.

Tesco, the UK’s dominant supermarket chain, already offers its customers mp3s to download and also has packaged media DVD rental available.

Read more at http://www.broadbandtvnews.com

Sony is now emailing its 77 million worldwide users of the PlayStation Network with a warning that all their user data have been compromised by the hacker attack between April 17 – 19. This might include the user’s credit card information.

According to the email, the information that was illegally obtained by the hackers include all personal data, including name, full address, email address, date of birth, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login information.

Sony also said that credit card data could have been stolen. As a precautionary measure, people are advised to closely watch transactions on their credit card account. It is believed that a minority of users have supplied their credit card details.

Meanwhile, PSN community members are upset about the lack of communication from Sony on the matter, as well as the time it is taking for the company to restore the PSN and Qriocity services. They also complain about the lack of information about what actually happened.

Meanwhile, Sony issued an offical statement about the situation in answer to criticism: “There’s a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers’ data being compromised. We learned there was an intrusion April 19 and subsequently shut the services down. We then brought in outside experts to help us learn how the intrusion occurred and to conduct an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident. It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday to understand the scope of the breach. We then shared that information with our consumers.”

Read more at http://www.broadbandtvnews.com

It looks like HBO is stepping up its TV Everywhere initiative to make on-demand videos from its cable network available … everywhere. According to a teaser video posted on HBO’s YouTube channel, the programmer will soon launch mobile apps that will bring its HBO Go online video service to the iPad and Google Android mobile devices.

According to the YouTube video, streaming mobile apps from HBO could be available in the next few weeks. The video teases “05.02.11″ as the date that these features will launch, although HBO has yet to respond to a request for confirmation on that release date.

Rolling out streaming availability on devices like the iPad is just an extension of HBO’s ongoing TV Everywhere strategy, which will enable pay TV subscribers that pay for its premium cable network to get additional access to on-demand videos online. The HBO Go service officially launched last February with 600 hours worth of on-demand content. HBO recently upped the ante by making every episode of every scripted series available through the service, boosting the number of available titles to 1,400. Now HBO is taking those video assets mobile. According to the video narrator:

“Imagine a place where you can enjoy all your favorite HBO series, movies and more, right at the tip of your finger. Introducing HBO Go, the new streaming service that gives you instant and unlimited access to the best HBO has to offer. Get every episode of every season of your favorite HBO shows, plus hit movies and much more — all free to HBO subscribers and all streaming on your iPad, laptop or smartphone wherever you are. HBO Go — it’s HBO, anywhere.”

It’s clear that the iPad will be the big selling point for many HBO subscribers, but it appears that the HBO Go will also be available on Android mobile devices as well. While the YouTube video doesn’t say that HBO Go will work on any particular smartphone or mobile OS, it previews the app running on what looks to be a Motorola Droid X, according to GigaOM mobile guru Kevin Tofel.

This isn’t the only way HBO subscribers can view the on-demand service on mobile devices like the iPad. Pay TV operators like Comcast have already made HBO Go titles available through their own mobile applications. But creating a streaming HBO Go app will allow the programmer to reach a larger group of users across a number of distributors. It will also enable HBO to keep its brand front and center and maintain a relationship with consumers, who generally pay cable, satellite and IPTV providers for the service.

Read more at http://gigaom.com

UK telco BT is banking on the YouView project to turn its BT Vision hybrid IPTV/digital terrestrial service into a major Pay TV force alongside BSkyB and Virgin Media. Currently BT Vision, with just over 500,000 subscribers, lies a distant third in the UK pay market compared with 3.8 million for Virgin Media and 10.1 million for BSkyB. The hybrid nature of the service and the inability of the BT infrastructure at this stage to deliver on-demand HD services, along with mixed fortunes securing attractive content deals, have held back BT Vision’s progress against its two strong competitors.

But now BT is aligning its television service with YouView, which launches next year. BT Vision will be one of the options on YouView after its launch, accessed through a portal alongside the BBC iPlayer catch-up TV service and others, but will still initially be available only as a walled garden IPTV service, like today.

The difference will be that subscribers will access the service via the YouView set-top box and portal, with the option of other YouView services including paid ones if they sign up. Consumers will still have to subscribe to BT’s broadband service to obtain access to BT Vision, with BT aiming to compete against YouView rivals, and indeed other IPTV or over-the-top (OTT) providers, through Quality of Service (QoS).

“We will align QoS through a good broadband offering with our BT Vision portfolio on YouView,” Steve White, BT’s Head of Information Systems and Technology for IPTV, told Videonet. “We hope customers will get a better experience using our broadband service than other peoples’.”

YouView then, is really a sales and marketing platform for BT designed to give BT Vision exposure at a time when its network infrastructure is coming of age for delivery of a full broadcast HD line-up. Many YouView users, except those subscribing to TalkTalk, will be BT broadband subscribers anyway and so will present rather a captive audience, as White hints.

“Because we are in the joint YouView venture, that helps, and we then have advantages other ISPs do not have. We have our own CDN (Content Delivery Network), we are upgrading our [core] network and rolling out multicast, so we have a pretty good start at delivering better quality video.”

BT Vision transmits linear TV over DTT using a Freeview decoder, with on-demand content including movies delivered by progressive download over the broadband connection. At the current average bit rate of around 4 Mbps, the progressive download requires 10 minutes of buffering to ensure smooth playout at SD quality.

Read more at http://www.v-net.tv