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Google Looking to Offer Paid Streaming TV Shows?

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Apr 12, 2001
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MediaMemo reports that Google is looking to enter the business of offering paid television content, a move which would add a new competitor to Apple's iTunes Store TV offerings. Google's service, however, is reportedly planned to utilize a streaming delivery method via YouTube rather than the download model used by Apple.
YouTube already lets users watch a smattering of TV shows for free, with advertising. Now it envisions something similar to what Apple and Amazon already offer: First-run shows, without commercials, for $1.99 an episode, available the day after they air on broadcast or cable.

Sources say the site's negotiations with the networks and studios that own the shows are preliminary. But both sides seem optimistic, since models for such deals already exist. No comment from YouTube.
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One possible question with Google's plan is whether consumers will accept streaming delivery over the more familiar download delivery generally favored for paid content. While executives have cited studies showing that most purchasers of downloaded TV content watch each show only once, convincing the public to rely on streaming video for the same $1.99 they have traditionally paid for downloadable content may not be easy.
But the networks and studios, which control pricing, will want to sell the streamed shows at the same price as downloads; they fear that offering them at a different price will force them to go back and rework their existing deals.
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Another tactic possibly under consideration is for Google to offer less popular TV shows that are currently unavailable through other digital outlets, providing the company with additional flexibility in its pricing model.

Article Link: Google Looking to Offer Paid Streaming TV Shows?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/12/01/google-looking-to-offering-paid-streaming-tv-shows/
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

What an awful idea. Streaming=free, legal downloading=paid, end of story. I'll watch 30 second Hulu ads over this any day.
 
ou this could be pretty interesting
signature_SmileyFace.jpg
depends which tv companies will agree though
 
If it's a one time (or one day) rental model, I can't see paying the same $2 Apple charges for a download. They'd have to get the price way, way down. I would probably pay up to 50 cents for a decent quality 'rental' of a TV show, but I would also expect to get a discount for buying whole seasons (down to say 25 cents an episode). Also, if I was paying for the service, I would expect some simple, relatively cheap way to get the content to my TV.

On the other hand if they are selling you a "permanent license" to the content and simply storing it for you remotely and you can retrieve it anytime in the future the $2 per episode might be palatable (to some) depending on quality, device compatibility, etc.

I wish, though, that these online offerings would start to move away from per show/episode pricing though. Give me a service that competes with cable by letting me rent bundled packages at a monthly rate. I typically don't need or want to 'own' episodes of a TV show. If I had unlimited access to the content for 30 days after release that would be enough. Nice to see another big player in this field either way.
 
mrgreen4242 said:
On the other hand if they are selling you a "permanent license" to the content and simply storing it for you remotely and you can retrieve it anytime in the future the $2 per episode might be palatable (to some) depending on quality, device compatibility, etc.
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... until they expire the content, or discontinue the service.

I kinda like to watch shows without constant stuttering, so "streaming" doesn't cut it for me.
 
Ya, I'm not paying $2 for a one-time stream... It calls for too much dependence on a good internet connection (and Time Warner just isn't consistent enough).
 
With a download you can then watch it offline on a notebook on a flight, on a touch, nano, classic or iphone or your computer or even Apple TV. Streaming greatly restricts your viewing options and doesn't allow for a start and stop viewing method. Watch part, finish later on another device.
 
no deal here.

sure i may only watch it once but i have options to watch anytime.

for the same price this is a no go for me.
 
maybe this goes hand-in-hand with Google's Cloud OS or whatever that crap they want to spread is.
 
At least it won't be riddled with Apple's horribly restrictive DRM.

Also - where in the article does it say you can only watch them once? It would be very easy for Google to implement a system where you pay for the episode and can watch it as many times as you like.
 
Several places are looking into this. I did a survey a couple of weeks ago which looked at various options to be provided by Apple, Google, Netflix, some other entity I forget about, and standard cable. It was looking to find the right price points and packages.

Basically it boiled down to whether you pay per episode, per show, per channel, or pay a flat rate for a block of channels.
 
Won't succeed.

People can just DVR the shows for free (in their minds)
 
Or just watch TV on you TV for free, on a bigger screen, in real time, how about that? Anyone?
 
Mykbibby said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

What an awful idea. Streaming=free, legal downloading=paid, end of story. I'll watch 30 second Hulu ads over this any day.
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except Hulu wants to start charging for their service soon. You can bet that shortly after, the free episodes on the network websites will dissappear as well. You can also expect that if Google starts selling streamed content for $1.99 a peek that sometime down the road the price on iTunes to download material will rise to $3.99 or something.

The end game for content providers is to eliminate free programming altogether. Their dream is for you to pay a fee each time you listen to a song or watch a movie or TV program--and even that won't entitle you to ad-free content.
 
DNS Update

Sounds interesting. Could this be backed up by the fact that their DNS for www.googletv.com was updated early this year?

Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Dates: Created 01-mar-2000 Updated 28-jan-2009 Expires 01-mar-2010
DNS Servers: NS1.GOOGLE.COM NS2.GOOGLE.COM NS3.GOOGLE.COM NS4.GOOGLE.COM

Full Link Here:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois/?tool_id=66&token=&toolhandler_redirect=0&ip=googletv.com

It could be coincidence.....but google.com hasn't been updated since '08, so maybe not.
 
barkomatic said:
except Hulu wants to start charging for their service soon. You can bet that shortly after, the free episodes on the network websites will dissappear as well. You can also expect that if Google starts selling streamed content for $1.99 a peek that sometime down the road the price on iTunes to download material will rise to $3.99 or something.

The end game for content providers is to eliminate free programming altogether. Their dream is for you to pay a fee each time you listen to a song or watch a movie or TV program--and even that won't entitle you to ad-free content.
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so comes back the bit torrents. I don't mind ads on hulu or the company sites, heck put 2 in per commercial break, but to put everything on a pay scale, well then you're just shooting yourself in the foot.
 
Bad Paradigm

These models will not be acceptable to consumers until there is a way to BURN the download onto a DVD for archival and play OFF THE NET.

Until then, there is trusty old Public Library. If they could get their act together, I would drop cable TV, go with ATSC, and supplement with internet downloads. Price has to be better, but I suspect this will happen when more folks come on board.
 
It might be a way for shows stuck in licensing hell to see the light of day again, like Daria.

AFAIK the only way to get ahold of Daria is a big old compilation that circulates around torrent sites, comprised of some OK rips, some well-dodgy rips and some realmedia files.

realmedia ;_;
 
satcomer said:
I bet Apple would love to offer DRM free video off the itunes Store. The MPAA would NEVER let them do that though! I'll will give them about 10 years before you start seeing DRM free TV/Movie in 10+ years.
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I wouldn’t be so sure.

Q: I take it then that you are going to advocate taking the DRM off of the videos you sell on iTunes. Any particular [inaudible] you could do that with the Disney company?

A: You know, video, uh... I knew I'd get that question today. Video is pretty different than music right now because the video industry does not distribute 90 percent of their content DRM free; never has, and so I think they are in a pretty different situation and so I wouldn't hold the two in parallel at all.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...ns_drm_and_video_ipod_storage_transcript.html
 
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