Yesterday, NBC Universal unveiled its online video venture with News Corp., called Hulu.com. It got lots of press everywhere and they’re even keynoting the next Streaming Media show. Today, NBC Universal said it was pulling its video content from iTunes so they can put it into Hulu instead.

Today’s New York Times said that NBC Universal wants more control over pricing and packaging of its TV content. From the Times:

“The media conglomerate — which is the No. 1 supplier of digital video to Apple’s online store, accounting for about 40 percent of downloads — notified Apple of its decision late yesterday, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity because negotiations between the companies are confidential”

I’m sure all the other iTunes content providers would like a better deal too. In July, Universal Music Group said it was pulling most of its music out of iTunes and just allowing certain content for sale. Does that mean that there will be a mass exodus from iTunes now? The New York Times says that talks between Apple and NBC Universal are still ongoing. Over at All Things Digital, they say NBC may be just playing hardball.

But I still have questions about Hulu. Will it be a free ad-supported, user-generated site like YouTube? Or is it going after the more mature “pay for play” iTunes market? 

Not much is known, so it’s wait and see about Hulu.

Technorati Tags: Hulu, NBC, YouTube, iTunes, Apple, NBC Universal

Popularity: 22% [?]

TV is dying, says Vint Cerf one of the builders of the Internet and now an executive at Google. Perhaps Vint is saying this because he works at Google (which also owns YouTube). Or perhaps he really believes it. Hearing it come from Vint, however, makes it seem like he’s ready to officiate the funeral.

People have been saying this for years, however. In the last 1o to 20 years, TV ratings are down dramatically. And surveys of U.S. consumers show that more and more people are tuning into the Internet and avoiding TV. Looks like “lean forward” is beating “lean back”.

But I think it’s more accurate to say: “TV as we know it is dying”.

Consumers face more choices today than ever. Things like Internet video, DVD rentals, video-on-demand, and others are cannibalizing prime-time viewership. Cerf said that in the future almost everything you watch will be on-demand:

“85 per cent of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time,” said Mr Cerf, who is now the vice-president of the Google, the world’s largest search engine.

“You’re still going to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting events and emergencies - but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later.”

HDTVs are growing in popularity here in the U.S. and many people love to come home, turn on the TV and veg out for hours. It’s such a force of habit for many people.

Linear, live TV won’t disappear anytime soon, but things like Tivo and other DVRs are definitely changing how we view TV.

Technorati Tags: TV, Nielsen, YouTube, Vint Cerf

Popularity: 23% [?]

IBM released results of a survey into the habits of consumers around the world and found that people are using the Internet more and watching less TV. Nineteen percent said they spend 6 hours or more per day using the Internet versus 9% who spent the same time watching TV.

The survey looked at other digital media usage, inculding mobile TV, online video, music and DVRs.  (I’ll be posting data on DVRs over at my sister blog, DVR Bulletin soon.) Some data highlights:

• 66 percent reported viewing between one to four hours of TV per day, versus 60 percent who reported the same levels of personal Internet usage.
• 81 percent of consumers said they’ve watched or want to watch PC video
• 42 percent said they’ve watched or want to watch mobile video
• 23 percent reported using a portable music service
• 7 percent reported having a video content subscription for their mobile phones
• 11 percent reported subscribing to a PC-based music service
• 18 percent reported an online newspaper subscription

People are increasingly turning to the Internet, where they have a variety of media, such as music, photos, movies and games and watching less TV. Among young consumers, TV is taking a back seat, said Saul Berman, IBM Media & Entertainment Strategy and Change practice leader.

“Just as the ‘Kool Kids’ and ‘Gadgetiers’* have replaced traditional land-lines with mobile communications, cable and satellite TV subscriptions risk a similar fate of being replaced as the primary source of content access.”

In Germany, users that have watched mobile video, 23 percent prefer to view user generated content, and 21 percent prefer video trailers or promotions.

Overall, nothing most of us don’t already know, but it’s nice to have the numbers to back it up and put in our PowerPoint slides and business plans.

* Marketers love to invent ridiculous words like “Gadgetiers” and “Kool Kids” to describe various groups, much like people use “Millenials”, “Generation X” and “Generation Y” to describe certain demographic segments. IBM says “Gadgetiers” are drawn to the latest devices and are interested in participating and controlling the time and place of their media experiences; while “Kool Kids” prefer interactive content and rely heavily on content sharing and social interaction. Enough fine print.

[Via Monsters and Critics and NewTeevee]

Bonus: Here’s a direct link to the IBM study on U.S. consumers. There are also individual reports for the U.K., Japan, Germany and Australia.

Bonus #2. IBM walked around the street with a video camera and asked kids whether they prefer TV or the Internet and the results won’t surprise you.

Technorati Tags: IBM, research, YouTube, online music, mobile TV, mobile video, Internet video

Popularity: 67% [?]

On Monday, a Silicon Valley-based start-up announced that it raised $17.5 million from a group of venture capitalists. The company, called “Building B”, says it plans to incorporate HD, SD, on-demand and Internet video content and have it delivered over wireless broadband without a PC.

Sounds like a nifty idea, but there’s not much known about Building B so there’s been a bit of speculation. First, the good news about Building B:

They’re Focusing on Mainstream Content. According to Michael Gartenberg at Jupiter Research, Building B is not interested in niche content like some companies. Said Gartenberg: “The fact that they’re focusing on mainstream, not enthusiast markets, the recognition that today’s broadband and home networking services leave a lot to be desired and the knowledge that mainstream audiences want mainstream content.”

Delivering Premium Content and Internet Video in One Box. I’m not sure what Building B will do for content. Will it partner directly with movie studios and set up its own on-demand service? Will it seek to partner with IPTV providers? Ether way, integration of Internet video in the same box as a cable box, for example, is sorely lacking.

Why Not Wireless Set-Top Boxes? I have a Tivo connected to my TV, but I don’t have an Ethernet wire running to it. I’m using Tivo’s wireless adapter to connect to my router. It cost about $50 but it’s well worth it. My biggest complaint is that Tivo didn’t have it built-in to its box and I had to buy it separately. But it’s worked flawlessly from day one and I can stream music and even download movies from Amazon’s Unbox service.

Get Away from the PC. Delivering the mix of SD, HD, VOD and Internet video to the TV is important. It’s easy to do all of that on the PC, but delivering those integrated video experiences and doing it well, with must-see TV and movie content is a great market.

But Don’t Believe the Hype

There are lots of questions, however. Like what wireless technology will they use in the home? WiMax? How will they earn revenues? When will they launch? What pricing will they have? What content partners do they have?

Gizmodo cautioned everyone:

“The bottom line is that we’ll believe in the One True Box when it’s sitting atop our TVs—we’ve heard way too many empty promises from far too many prophets to be true believers before then.”

NewTeeVee said that they were somewhat skeptical of their claims also.

“Such reticence makes me inherently skeptical of their claims, especially in light of Movie Beam, another wireless video content delivery service that burnt through millions of dollars and in the end had little to show for it. Similarly, Akimbo, which has been aggregating produced video content for some time, hasn’t exactly rocked the world, despite backing from AT&T (T) and Cisco Systems.”

Plus there’s the “Yet Another Set-Top Box” syndrome. Consumers already have lots of choices to get content. There’s cable, VOD, Tivo, Amazon, NetFlix, YouTube, AppleTV and lots more. And there’s the aforementioned MovieBeams, Movielinks, and Akimbos that have tried something very similar. Plus there’s also more recent competition. Mashable says: “WiTV and VuDu are others on which we’re keeping a close eye.”

In the IPTV space, wireless set-top boxes are ready to be unveiled. Celrun announced that it was adding wireless connectivity to its set-top box using technology from Metalink. Metalink makes the 802.11n WLANPlus chipset which allows for a maximum data rate of about 300Mbps (compared to 54Mbps for WiFi). Samsung also said it will use Metalink’s chipset, so it should be interesting to keep an eye on these products when they are finally released.

Bonus: PaidContent (via Variety) points out that Building B is partnering with a company called Claria, which used to be called Gator, a notorious ad-ware company.

Technorati Tags: Building B, Tivo, Apple TV, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, set-top box, Celrun, Metalink, Samsung, WiMax, 80211n

Popularity: 21% [?]

YouTube topped the list of Internet video sites, according to Nielsen/NetRating’s research. For July 2007, YouTube had a unique audience of over 55 million people, a growth of 81% from a year ago.

YouTube continues to be the decisive number 1 video site. MySpace’s video site only has about 17.9 million users. If you count Google Video, which is number three, the total unique audience for Google/YouTube is 70,976,000 people. That’s almost 4x more than number two MySpace.

It’s interesting that Nielsen/NetRatings doesn’t put YouTube and Google together. Perhaps that’s because they still exist separately. Will Google ever integrate Google Video with YouTube? Why keep Google Video alive any longer?

Some of the other interesting insights into the Top 10 are the addition of sites like “Funny or Die”, Veoh and Break.com. Although they’re at the bottom of the list, they are breaking through.

In fact, Veoh showed the largest percent gain from a year ago, increasing its audience 183% to 2.8 million. Veoh has recently made news by filing a “pre-emptive lawsuit” against Universal Music Group (UMG).

AOL Video is a new entry in this year’s rankings and doesn’t appear in last year’s data. The rapid growth of AOL Video is because of the popularity of AOL’s gossip blog TMZ, which has lots of papparazzi video and lots of readers.

Also making a big jump is Yahoo! video up 169% from a year ago although I can’t attribute it to anything in particular.

Here’s the top 10: (Click on image to see it in full-size.)

[From Nielsen/NetRatings’s web site.]

Technorati Tags: Nielsen/Netratings, Internet video, streaming, streaming media, YouTube, Google, Google Video, Veoh

Popularity: 26% [?]