Online TV has claimed its first high profile victim, might more follow, asks Julian Clover?
The demise of Jalipo was sadly an event waiting to happen. The premise of offering people bite-sized portions of channels through the internal system of J Credits was sound enough, just that as is so often the case with the world wide web, you can always find something else to entertain you at half the price. If Jalipo found it difficult to make ends meet, how will it be possible for those sites with no discernable content to survive?
The seeds were already sown when Livestation went live in August, but the initial selection of partner channels were very much alike, with the crucial difference that Livestation, like rival Zattoo, doesn’t cost anything to view. The question here is whether Livestation viewers will be happy to download another player to add to their growing collection.
When Livestation read of Jalipo’s fate in Broadband TV News, the company offered a Polson-style rescue package to former Jalipo customers, offering broadcasters a home for their content (Livestation is planning to later offer its own pay environment).
One of the key things that the distribution of television over the internet has achieved is an extra bargaining chip for cable operators and content providers alike. New channels have been threatened with the loss of potential cable distribution deals if their signal is made freely available online. But it works both ways and this week Sony announced that the fourth series of its New York fireman drama Rescue Me would be carried on iTunes in the UK rather than its previous home on Sky One. Such a scenario was recently painted by Chellomedia COO Niall Curran at the recent CTAM cable marketing conference in Berlin.
However well the pay-TV sector manages to escape the effects of the electronic downturn, there will no doubt be a shake-up in the number of available services, either that or we prepare for a period of international and local consolidation.
One month after Amsterdam and we’re still getting IBC press releases. Having covered the event for the best part of a week, including our Saturday and Sunday editions, it is reasonable to conclude that we’ve largely caught up on the news by now.