Broadband Content Bits: YouTube's Longer Shows; NYT HD Video; Dell PCs Get Music, Movies; SNL/Palin
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
YouTube runs full-length shows : YouTube is debuting full-length programming, starting with episodes of Star Trek, Beverly Hills, 90210 and MacGuyver (all owned by CBS). USA Today says it's a push to better compete with challengers like Hulu, Veoh and blip.tv that currently offer full-length clips from partners like NBC, Fox and ABC. Though YouTube is still the king in terms of volume (8.5 billion streams in September, compared to runner-up Yahoo's 264,266 streams), the 10-minute time limit it previously placed on videos was one weak point. Now the platform can draw in more ad revenue, as the full-length clips feature pre-roll units that can't be paused, skipped or even muted. Shorter videos feature custom overlay units, but they haven't been a hit with most advertisers.
NYT adds HD video player; redesigns library : The New York Times has launched a new 16:9 wide-screen HD video player, revamped its library and added social bookmarking features to its videos. The new player is from Brightcove, the Times was previously using TheFeedRoom's platform. The Times plans to shoot, produce and distribute HD video in the coming months: clips are currently syndicated to TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO), broadcast TV shows like NBC News, and on JetBlue flights, among others. Release.
Dell PCs to ship with movies, music : Dell has partnered with CinemaNow and Universal Music Group to offer PCs that come pre-loaded with movies from studios like Paramount, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures and Warner Bros.; as well as various MP3s. Both movie and music bundles start out at $25 each: movies come with Windows Media DRM, so they can be ported to select Windows Media-enabled devices, but the songs come DRM-free, meaning users can use them on whichever player they choose. Buyers add the bundles to their PC during the ordering process at Dell.com, and the company said it plans to keep refreshing the content available.
Online views of SNL's Sarah Palin clips to eclipse TV : 15 million viewers tuned in to watch Sarah Palin's appearance on SNLthe show's best ratings in 14 yearsbut that will soon be eclipsed by the number of times the clips have been viewed online, Ad Age reports. Within four days, a pair of clips from the show had garnered almost 8.9 million views on various sites like NBC.com (but not Hulu), MySpace, YouTube and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Neither Hulu nor NBC would provide streaming stats for Hulu, but if they were released, its likely that the total number of online views would be much closer to the TV numbers.
By Tameka Kee