TVO inks new deal for Internet distribution

Six months after TVOntario announced it was going digital, the Ontario public broadcaster has signed another deal to broaden distribution of its programs via the Internet. The agreement with Joost, a Netherlands-based company that provides Internet-based television, is expected to kick off in three weeks. Jill Javet, TVO's director of corporate relations, says the initial phase will focus mainly on delivery of the broadcaster's highly acclaimed documentaries."It will be about 30 hours of documentaries and then we will be adding new hours every month on an ongoing basis," she says.Javet says they chose the Dutch company as a partner based on the high quality of its Internet TV and the growing popularity of online TV among consumers in Canada. TVO hopes to build on the success of its recent deal with Yahoo! Canada for the delivery of educational programs about children."In the first few weeks that our videos have been up there, they are the most popular on the lifestyle section of Yahoo."In what could be a trend, Javet says TVO's audience appears to be moving increasingly towards alternative and more flexible distribution formats. Downloads in particular, seem to be a big hit with audiences. In the first quarter of 2008, there were 800,000 downloads of the station's current affairs programs, a big surprise for a station which 17 months ago, wasn't even doing podcasts.But even with the large number of downloads, Javet says it is too early to determine the target audience that will be reached through its partnership with Joost. And, while there is a revenue component to the deal, she notes it's hard to predict what impact it will have on TVO's bottom-line."I think everybody in this business is really testing the waters and so it will be premature for us to begin to know. But if you don't try, you really won't know," says Javet, adding that all revenues generated around TVO content will be shared with Joost. TVO recently added two new digital studios, one for live-streaming of its flagship program The Agenda, hosted by Steve Paikin, and the other for a children's program.

TVO inks new deal for Internet distribution

Broadcast | June 20, 2008

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