July 31, 2006 AOL Plans Expansion of Videos on Portal By SAUL HANSELL NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/technology/31aol.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print AOL is about to introduce a vastly expanded online video area, an important part of its effort to attract a new audience to replace that of its rapidly declining subscription service. AOL has long been a leader in producing video programming, and video has been a prominent feature of its AOL.com portal. The new service, which will begin public testing on Friday, adds a range of new free programs. For the first time it will also sell commercial-free downloads, competing with Apple's iTunes Music Store and Google Video. For now, AOL does not have agreements to sell programs from the major broadcast networks. But it will sell downloads from other large programmers, including MTV Networks, A&E Networks and Warner Brothers. MTV, for example, will sell full-length programs like "Pimp My Ride," "South Park" and "SpongeBob SquarePants," which will be available for $1.99 the day after they are broadcast. MTV, which is owned by Viacom, said recently that it had sold more than 1 million "South Park" episodes through Apple's service. Two other popular Viacom programs, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," will not be offered until the fall, when AOL expects to introduce software that will allow it to sell subscriptions to video programming. New free programs on AOL will include movies from Turner's TNT network, stand-up routines from Comedy Time and classic soap operas like "Another World" presented by Procter & Gamble. The site will also feature free programming from Lime, a health and spiritualism network backed by Stephen M. Case, AOL's longtime chief executive, who left the company two years after its merger with Time Warner. Kevin C. Conroy, an AOL executive vice president, said the company's research showed that users wanted free and paid programming: "Consumers said loud and clear, 'I don't understand why I have to go one place to watch stuff with ads and another place for download-to-own stuff. Can't someone provide me with all my choices in one place?' " He added that AOL wanted to provide access not only to the programs that it produced and those that it agreed to promote, but to all Web programming. So the video site will include an improved version of AOL's video search service, which can comb through five million clips on the Web. On Wednesday, Time Warner will announce a radical restructuring of AOL that will substantially scale back its large Internet access business. It will make AOL e-mail and nearly all the other features of that service available free to any Internet user. It will lay off more than 1,000 people involved in recruiting and retaining subscribers. Will Richmond, the president of Broadband Directions, a consulting firm, said that despite AOL's troubles, it had momentum in the Internet video market. "Of all the portals, AOL has been the most active in launching video programming on the Internet," he said. "They have significant media skills." ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
