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Mike Berkley  //  Product Strategy @ Comcast's Social Technology Group. Formerly CEO of SplashCast Media. This is my personal blog. My writing and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Comcast.

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Nov 18 / 11:21am

TV Everywhere Getting Closer to Reality, Thanks to thePlatform

Comcast-owned ThePlatform is arguably the top Online Video Platform (OVP) provider, and almost certainly is within the TV industry.  They unseated encumbent Brightcove over the last year by launching Hulu.com, CBS.com, TV.com, and a slew of other broadcast and cable TV networks. They announced even more TV programmer customers today (most of whom are owned by Comcast) as well as Rogers, Canada's largest cable operator.  ThePlatform also powers online video for Comcast's largest competitors: Time Warner Cable, Cox, and CableVision.

Today, thePlatform made a major announcement that brings TV Everywhere a HUGE step closer to reality.

ThePlatform is launching a cable Authentication & Authorization component to its white-label video publishing product that will enable programmer web sites (HBO.com, Showtime.com, NBC.com, etc) to publish their premium TV shows on their sites, requiring the user to authenticate himself as a cable subscriber with access to that channel (ie, you can only watch HBO shows online if you pay for HBO through your cable provider).  Enforcing this authentication ensures everyone in the media supply chain gets credit for that view, and money is transferred accordingly.  To that end: an integration with Nielsen to directly track views would be a killer strategic move by thePlatform! 

This solution also has the following compelling side benefits for the MSO's and TV Programmers:

  • Keeping cable subscribers happy and hooked (cable companies fear that free online TV services like Hulu may result in cable subscribers canceling their pay TV services).
  • Upselling subscriptions: if I'm a Comcast subscriber but don't pay for the HBO cable package, I may be compelled to sign up now if it means I can watch all HBO shows whenever I want, online (or on my HD TV via Boxee or the like).
  • Upselling content: if I am not an HBO subscriber but want to watch just a single HBO show, now there is a mechanism to buy shows a la cart.  This is the model that Disney currently loves.

Here's a nice diagram of how this new component works:

ThePlatform is initially providing this technology only to TV Programmers for their sites (broadcast networks and cable channels).  That's a great first step, though I believe the killer app will be making this capability available to any web site, not just NBC.com or HBO.com, etc. I wrote about this just yesterday.

Regarding the rest of thePlatform's competition in the OVP space...  DigitalSmiths, despite its strong TV Everywhere positioning campaign last month, hasn't released any technology yet that addresses the initiative's largest challenges: authentication and authoriziation.  Meanwhile, Ooyala and Brightcove appear to be sitting on the TV Everywhere sidelines.

Filed under  //  Authentication   Brightcove   Comcast   Digitalsmiths   Ooyala   ThePlatform   TimeWarner   TV Everywhere  
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Oct 12 / 9:06pm

Uh, Ooyala, there's a little company called ThePlatform, owned by a little co called COMCAST... ya might wanna check 'em out.

Ooyala has a solid, albeit simple platform... Comcast's ThePlatform and Brightcove have them beat in the premium TV space.  In the quotes below, they totally ignore ThePlatform as a competitor.  A few of ThePlatform's customers include Hulu, CBS, NBC, etc.

via newteevee.com:

Ooyala, which we just named to our NewTeeVee’s Next Big Thing list tonight, has raised $10 million in Series C funding in a round lead by Rembrandt Venture Partners and including previous investor Sierra Ventures. The Mountain View Calif.-based video platform startup has now raised a total of $20 million.

Ooyala, which recently hired CEO Jay Fulcher, said it has more than 500 customers delivering hundreds of millions of streams per month, and it plans to expand into Europe next, as well as onto the iPhone and Android and Microsoft Silverlight.

Alongside its funding, the company released a fact-sheet to the press with some fighting words about its competition. See below — ouch!

Q. Who are your biggest competitors?

A. The incumbent solutions we compete against most often are the homegrown implementations of video. There are over 10,000 of these in the top 100,000 Quantcast sites. Outside of that, we believe that Brightcove is next closest competitor.

Q. What do you think of the recent acquisition of the Feedroom by KIT Digital? What do you think the OVP landscape will look like by the end of 2010?

A. Like so many companies in the OVP space that were started in the late 90s or earlier part of this decade, the Feedroom stopped building technology and focused on building custom video solutions, which is not a business that can easily scale. As a result, their revenues were stunted and ultimately absorbed by KIT Digital. For 2010, I think many of the small providers like Delve Networks, Episodic.com, Twistage will fall by the way-side. Companies that already have some level of success but not very much technology, like Fliqz and Multicast, will be consolidated into a company that primarily provides professional services. Depending on what Brightcove’s investors plan to do, they may also be taken out in the next 6-12 months.

 

Filed under  //  Brightcove   Comcast   Ooyala   ThePlatform  
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