Comcast OnDemand Goes Online
By Harry McCracken | Friday, February 20, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer has posted a worthwhile read on Comcast’s upcoming Internet TV service, which is due later this year. It’s tentatively called OnDemand Online, and it sounds like it’ll be a rough equivalent of the company’s OnDemand cable service, featuring content from cable channels and available only to Comcast subscribers. It’s in addition to the company’s Hulu-like Fancast site, which focuses on free content from broadcast channels.
It’s impossible to think about OnDemand Online without obsessing over this week’s removal of Hulu from Boxee, the software that lets you watch Internet TV on a TV. Some observers wonder if cable companies were behind Hulu’s request that Boxee cease streaming its programming. I have no idea whether Comcast was involved, it would be a bummer to think that the company was trying to pre-empt competition for its new service by strongarming it out of action. Internet-based streaming is going to provide increasingly stiff competition for Comcast and other cable companies over the next few years, and while it makes perfect sense for Comcast to jump into the game, I gnash my teeth at the thought that it could be a fait accompli that it will dominate Internet TV in the same way it dominates cable…
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Comcast’s Subscriber-Only Content Goes Live | Technologizer Says:
December 15th, 2009 at 10:42 am[…] all: News Comcast’s online version of its OnDemand TV service is live. (For some reason, the company changed the name from the perfectly-logical Comcast […]
February 20th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
The conspiracy theorists will also love the fact that Comcast’s Fancast features/syndicates/licenses Hulu content.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:13 am
The user interface is absolutely TERRIBLE for Comcast’s onDemand TV service. They had better improve it for their online service or it will never become popular.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Harry, basic TV econ is that on average every half hour you watch is worth about .25-.40 cents, in advertising.
That part of the model can’t change. And it doesn’t include delivery. Now there are many ways to recover the amount of money:
You could pay it.
You could watch 16 :30 second ads per half hour.
You could fork over personal data and see less ads.
Which do you prefer? Ultimately if Cable / Fios / Wimax gives you those 3 choices and compete against each other to lower the added cost of delivery, will you be happy?
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 am
Hi, newbie around, good post