Look TV experiments with advertising supported, all-streaming Internet portal

Look Communications Inc has teamed up with Canada’s second largest broadcaster and other content providers to launch the country’s first all-streaming, all-audio website. Launched August 23, the new portal gives the wireless ISP a chance to showcase its high-speed capabilities, while at the same time, giving programmers like CanWest Global Communications Corp an opportunity to test a new distribution medium. Global TV is one of more than 200 content companies providing news, information, weather, entertainment and sports to the new LookTVi site. Other programmers include Trailervision.com (CNM, August 23/00), and WorkdayTV.com (CNM, June 14/00). The new web site is unique in that it delivers only audio and video streaming content, and at download speeds of 3 Mbs. The site is best viewed by subscribers to Look’s high-speed Internet service, which uses a broadband wireless technology called multipoint communications system. For lower-speed subscribers or those pining for a more traditional viewing experience, Looktvi.com will link to Looktown.com, a text portal launched last April that offers news, entertainment, shopping, weather updates and games. Look’s VP of content and new media, Steve Curry, says the company is also looking at offering movies-on-demand down the road, as well as other television-like streaming content. For the time being, however, the main goal of the portal is to make money from advertising or pay-per-view subscriptions. Advertisements can range from a 10-second radio spot to a 60-second video infomercial. "We want to showcase the potential of high-speed. That’s the future of the Internet, but that’s not what the site’s really about," he told Canadian NEW MEDIA. "The site’s about providing content and the content services that people are going to use over a high-speed connections. There is a great business model." In the wake of BCE Inc’s proposed acquisition of CTV Inc, and CanWest’s purchase of the Hollinger publishing empire, some analysts couldn’t help but wonder if the content deal between Look and CanWest could lead to bigger things between the two companies, despite their corporate and cultural differences. CanWest has solid roots in Manitoba and Ontario, and less so in Quebec where Look’s parentage is based. Look is part of the Telesystem Group Inc family. Iain Grant, managing partner of The Yankee Group in Canada, says a potential partnership between CanWest and Telesystem makes sense in light of other high-profile mergers which have recently shaped Canada’s new media sector. "I suppose it makes more sense than a CTV alliance, (and) probably more sense than a CBC alliance. So good for them." His colleague, Mark Quigley, says the partnership gives both companies a chance to get to know each other and test new technologies. "Whether it’s CanWest Global’s long term plan or not, it gives them the opportunity to kind of feel things out, see how all this works. See what kind of things appeal to people, what kind of things don’t," he says. High-speed Internet companies are frantically searching for content which takes advantage of big bandwidth to attract customers and advertisers, as a recent Yankee Group in Canada report argued (CNM, May 18/00). That study indicated that Hollinger’s flagship site, Canada.com, is losing ground to portals such as BCE’s Sympatico.ca which is merging high-speed access and rich multimedia content. Curry points out that the deal with Global was hammered out late in the game, and shouldn’t be taken as anything more than a decision based on content and an existing relationship between his staff and staff at the Winnipeg broadcaster. "If there is something larger in discussions, I’m not aware of it."

Look TV experiments with advertising supported, all-streaming Internet portal

Broadcast | September 6, 2000

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