Today Brightcove announced the next logical step in its video publishing platform — and quite likely the next stage in online video in general — the TV Everywhere Solution Pack (TVE-SP). It’s a combination of the current Brightcove 4 platform, along with other tools and services, that allows TV programmers to bring their goods to subscribers online.
Basically, if you subscribe to networks like Syfy or Showtime via your cable, satellite, or telecom provider, you’ll have access to that content online at the network’s site after a simple authentication procedure. Brightcove has teamed up with Ping Identity to bring their PingFederate software to TVE-SP — vastly simplifying the normal headache of user authentication.
Now you might ask, what makes this so special — given that cable providers like Time Warner and Comcast are already implementing their own solutions to bring TV programming to subscribers online? The biggest benefit I can see is that it gives TV programmers the power to make content available online without being beholden to cable providers. Programmers would have complete control of advertising as well as the distribution of the content.
VentureBeat spoke to Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire back in October of last year about the future of online video. Given today’s announcement, that interview has gained another layer of meaning entirely. Particularly, when he’s asked about his biggest questions regarding online video. He told us:
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There’s a big question as to whether meaningful, over-the-top distribution opportunities in video will emerge. What I mean by that is people are getting access to live, high quality, on-demand video without being dependent on traditional cable, satellite or telecom companies. There’s also convergence. There’s a sufficient volume of premium content coming online and speeds are high enough for HD streaming video. Media buyers are changing their behavior.
Given what TVE-SP enables networks to do, it seems that Allaire is spearheading a world where video content producers don’t have to be as reliant on traditional methods of distribution. This could be the first step towards a content utopia where we could just subscribe to Showtime’s website and view it on our televisions via something like the Boxee Box.
Brightcove’s VP of TV Solutions, Eric Elia, had this to say when asked about TV Everywhere’s potential to reduce cable/satellite/telco control of content:
There will be more choice and control here for both programmers and viewers, not less. The opportunity to go direct to the audience has been there for years now. iTunes, Netflix and Hulu are just three well known outlets. But they’ve been limited. Go try to find Dexter Season 4 on any of those services. The cable finale was almost two months ago. TV Everywhere has the chance to open the floodgates to content that today is stale by the time it gets to those services, if it ever gets there. I’m impressed by how quickly the industry seems to be moving. Programmers see this as a chance to make their viewers happy and to do it without undermining their existing business. As one programming exec put it to me, “we want to demonstrate a better business model than unintentionally downsizing the entire industry.”
