Business | Technology
Blinkx enters online television market
Video search group's Broadband TV will initially offer free independent films and news delivered over the internet.
- By Tim Bradsha, Financial Times
- Published: 00:34 April 5, 2008
- Image Credit: Supplied Picture
- Blinkx's only content partners for BBTV are Dogwoof Pictures, an independent film distributor, and ITN, the UK news group.
Blinkx, the Aim-listed video search group, last week entered the increasingly crowded market for online television.
Blinkx Broadband TV (BBTV) will initially offer independent films and news free of charge, delivered over the internet but with picture quality on par with ordinary TV.
The company, spun out of Autonomy, the software developer, last May, hopes niche programming and high levels of interactivity will differentiate BBTV from its rivals.
Joost and Babelgum have both been running similar internet TV services for more than a year. But broadcaster-led services, such as the BBC's iPlayer and US-based Hulu, appear to have had greater success in this fast-developing area, thanks to their larger base of well-known programming.
At launch, Blinkx's only content partners for BBTV are Dogwoof Pictures, an independent film distributor, and ITN, the UK-based news group.
Niche market
Suranga Chandratillake, chief executive, defended the targeted approach, saying that "niche markets, assuming they get to a certain scale, are extremely interesting to advertisers".
Blinkx has signed hundreds of content deals for its core Blinkx.com website, where users can search through millions of video clips, mostly licensed from smaller media companies but also from the likes of Fox and NBC, the US networks that founded Hulu. BBTV will focus on content that is hard to find on ordinary television, while its audio and visual search will enable users to jump to particular speech, or look up people and phrases on websites such as Google and IMDB.
"Internet TV has to give you something [regular] TV doesn't give you," said Chandratillake. "We let you use the content as a jumping point to the rest of the web."
Chandratillake expects BBTV's business model to be largely advertising-funded and free to view.
Rajeev Bahl, analyst at Piper Jaffray, is expecting revenues of £1.6 million from BBTV in its first year, about 10 per cent of Blinkx's total expected sales for the year to March 2009.
The rest should come from Blinkx.com advertising revenue.
More from Technology
More from Business
Business Editor's choice
-
‘Wrong Way' Krugman
The source of our economic malfunction lies with government-mandated bank regulations
-
Greek exit could make Eurozone stronger
Departure will show limits of bailouts and allow remaining members to act much more like a unit
-
UAE upholds values of free trade
Recently released statistics confirm an established fact, namely that of the UAE embracing the free trade principle in general and imports in particular
