CBS, 17 More Cable Networks, to Participate in Comcast's On Demand Online Trial

Just one day after announcing that Home Box Office's HBO and Cinemax premium programming services will make a selection of their content available online, at no extra charge, to their subscribers who are also Comcast customers, under the auspices of the MSO's recently announced trial of a service called On Demand Online, Comcast announced Tuesday that broadcast network CBS and 17 cable channels--owned by Rainbow Media, Scripps, AETN, MGM Impact, the BBC, and Comcast itself--will also participate in the trial. On Demand Online was announced last month as part of an agreement between Comcast and Time Warner to develop "broad principles" for the so-called "TV Everywhere" distribution model; Comcast has also announced the participation of Starz, TNT and TBS in the trial. (Note: the "TV Everywhere" model, which has long been championed by Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, seeks to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on multiple platforms, and thus aims to head off the threat posed to pay-TV services by the increasing availability of over-the-top programming--for more background, see the articles published on itvt.com, April 30th, May 14th and June 25th.)

The motivation of CBS--which, unlike the trial's other participants, already offers a fair amount of its content free-of-charge online, via its TV.com site and other locations--for participating in On Demand Online is still unclear; however, the "authentication" technology that the trial is designed to test (see below) could arguably result in various scenarios that would make it more financially attractive for CBS to offer a wider range of programming online--and with fewer windowing restrictions--than it currently does. "CBS is very supportive of initiatives that help extend our content to new platforms in such a way that we gain new audiences and additional value for our advertisers," Quincy Smith, CEO of CBS Interactive, said in a prepared statement. "Comcast is already a trusted platform to distribute CBS content on-air as well as on-demand; expanding this relationship online is a logical step. In addition, CBS's strategy has always been about open, non-exclusive distribution of our content in a consumer-friendly way, which is a core tenet of TV Everywhere and On Demand Online."

The cable channels whose participation in the On Demand Online trial was announced Tuesday are A&E, AMC, BBC America, DIY Network, Fine Living Network, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, History, IFC, MGM Impact, Sundance Channel, WE tv, E! Entertainment, The Style Network, G4 and FEARnet. "We are thrilled to partner with all of these popular cable networks to significantly expand the premium content available for the On Demand Online trial," Matt Bond, Comcast's EVP of content acquisition, said in a prepared statement. "Today's announcement highlights the industry's growing interest to bring long-form content to consumers via a secure and easy-to-use online platform. Our goal for On Demand Online is to create a consumer-friendly service that significantly expands customer options to access their favorite TV content on any platform at any time, and we are pleased that so many content providers are partnering with us to make this goal a reality."

The On Demand Online trial--which will make programming available through Comcast's Comcast.net and Fancast.com broadband video sites to approximately 5,000 randomly chosen customers from across the US--is designed primarily to test Comcast's new "authentication" technology, which is intended to restrict online access to pay-TV content to customers who have already paid for that content. The MSO says that On Demand Online, which is slated to launch in the coming weeks, will use a simple log-on system for streaming content and that, in the future, the service will allow customers to download content to go. The service is slated to be rolled out in phases, adding new features, functionality and content over time.