Cue the Strangelove Moment: Media & Entertainment Year in Review

After assuring the U.K. members of the audience at the London-based event that BBC Worldwide doesn’t use its licensing fees to put content on the web, London was asked by an expatriate whether he would ever be able to watch content via the iPlayer in another country. London said he could not speak for the BBC on the topic, but he mentioned the fact that BBC Worldwide bids at market price against other content aggregators. Therefore, it might not be out of the question to drive worldwide iPlayer viewership via carefully selected advertisements.

The BBC also provided some interesting insight into the impact of viewership for long-running programs. East Enders, a show that has aired for nearly 30 years, has some online viewership, but nothing to the proportion of the newer shows. As audiences build up around these newer shows, BBC statistics show a much higher total percentage of viewers. In essence, the video streams are also bringing viewership parity, as newer shows’ combined online and traditional viewership is now coming close to that of perennial favorites.

iTunes Update
Another technology back for its close-up this year is iTunes. Apple released the iPhone 3G, and in November it added the option of direct access to podcasts. Given the 3G AT&T Wireless network, these progressive downloads are fast enough to begin listening to immediately, eliminating the need to first download the podcast to an iTunes player and then sync the iPhone to the computer.

In addition, NBC and Apple broke up and then got back together, with NBC perhaps getting the better part of the deal, as it was allowed to vary the pricing for its more popular shows. Apple, however, emerged as the clear winner, as it cemented its online dominance in both paid audio and video content.

Learning to Love YouTube
Finally, in the same year that BitTorrent went legit, studios stopped hating the web. At least one embraced YouTube.

While Viacom continued forward with its copyright lawsuit against YouTube, which is owned by Google, MGM Worldwide Digital Media crafted a deal to make full-length movies and promotional clips from MGM’s library available on YouTube.

"We’re looking to mine the breadth and depth of the MGM library to build out and promote branded, multiplatform opportunities on demand, online, and wherever viewers consume their entertainment," said Jim Packer, co-president of MGM Worldwide Television.

YouTube also got two other pieces of good news in late 2008, as it struck a deal with reality- and game-show company FremantleMedia to deliver exclusively produced shows on YouTube. The content will probably be protected by YouTube’s beta rights management tool, YouTube Video Identification, which provides digital fingerprinting for content that allows content owners to choose whether to kill or monetize content uploaded by fans.

Both the FremantleMedia and MGM deals include revenue splits, and YouTube’s announcement that it is getting into live streaming content as well sets the stage for a very interesting 2009.