The CBC has re-launched its YouTube Channel.

Even though full-length shows are available, for the most part, on the CBC web site, the YouTube channel ensures that those searching for things like the Rick Mercer Report end up getting the videos from the source, not from some reposting hack.

The new YouTube channel incorporates lots of functionality allowing users to personalize their content. Users can favorite videos, subscribe to shows and share videos with their friends.

It’s all part of our evil plan to take over the Internet. Mwahahaha! Actually, truth be told, we probably decided to re-launch when that last bastion of stodginess, the Royal Family, launched their own channel on YouTube. Can’t hold out much longer after seeing that exciting content going live.

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	On-Demand TV, Other Internet	Posted at 1:50 pm (30 Apr 2008)

Canadians can now buy individual television episodes on iTunes, Apple’s digital media store, and three CBC shows are in the mix.

For $1.99 each episode (ouch), you can buy Little Mosque on the Prairie and The Rick Mercer Report, and reality shows No Opportunity Wasted and Dragon’s Den. The store also carries programming from CTV, Comedy Central, and MTV.

Also available will be NHL Games of the Year, including top NHL games in their entirety for the 2007-2008 season, as well as Stanley Cup Classics, a five-game bundle of great Stanley Cup Final games.

Incidentally, even though the shows are being sold on Apple’s store, you don’t need a Mac to watch the programming — a Windows box can play them as well.

Would you buy an episode for $1.99?

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	On-Demand TV	Posted at 3:52 pm (12 Dec 2007)

On Wednesday, Quebecor Media launched Canoe.TV, a free online video webcasting service. And it’s chock full of CBC content.

The site, available with both English and French content, features both live and on-demand content in a variety of categories. The on-demand programs lean heavily on CBC Television:

- the drama category is currently exclusively CBC (Jozi-H, October 1970, North/South and 49th & Main).
- the comedy area features Getting Along Famously and the Rick Mercer Report (season 3).
- the News & Documentaries category currently has only Mansbridge One on One.

Other channels are decidedly mixed fare from other broadcasters: ultimate fighting, yoga, home renovations, Sunshine Girl TV (“Ashley, is a 5-foot-7 Scorpio who’s way into motorcycles and cars…”) and Club Scene (mostly more T&A).

Live programming varies (right now I’m watching a Bollywood movie; programming comes from broadcasters in India, Portugal, Jamaica, UAE and Pakistan via Toronto-based Jump TV.)

According to Playback, “to monetize Canoe.TV, Quebecor Media will share online advertising revenue with content partners.” CBC is one of those content partners.

Bob Kerr, director of business development for CBC, says this is one of dozens of partnerships designed to increase exposure, including YouTube.

“It’s exposure, it’s reaching an audience we can’t guarantee we’d reach otherwise,” he says. “We can’t be arrogant enough to assume that anything we put up on our site people will come over and watch it. This improves the chances of them coming to CBC-TV or CBC.ca.”

Kerr points out that the content being offered on Canoe.TV is neither exclusive, nor the sort of “premium” content that is currently hosted and/or sponsored on CBC.ca, or sold through other venues.

“It’s a big, sophisticated platform on the Canadian space – why wouldn’t we want to be a part of it?”

What do you think? Increased exposure is good, and I certainly hope we see some revenue – though right now there aren’t many ads – but it bugs me to see online content that isn’t available via CBC.ca. And doesn’t it look weird seeing our chief correspondent under the logo of what some might call the competition? Or is this distribution, not competition? How about YouTube?

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	On-Demand TV	Posted at 3:14 pm (30 Nov 2007)

The CBC’s Toronto broadcast centre will host an interesting panel Wednesday on the future of news. It’ll explore how technology — such as citizen journalism and Web 2.0 tools — can be used by the media to provide greater public service to citizens and communities.

Participants include:

• Andrew Keen, author, The Cult of the Amateur
• Leonard Brody, CEO, NowPublic.com
• Rahaf Harfoursh, Research Coordinator, “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything”

There are only a handful of public seats available, so you may want to tune in online. It’ll be streamed live at cbc.ca/futureofnews (where a discussion forum is open now) and segments from the discussion will appear on CBC TV and CBC Radio.

Happens Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.

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	Digital Radio, Interactive TV, On-Demand TV	Posted at 5:38 am (16 Oct 2007)

I really do watch a lot of video podcasts. My favourite 12 are: Alive in Baghdad, Best of YouTube, CNN All Access, commandN, Gordon Ramsey’s Fast Food, lynda.com, Mr. Deity, Onion News, Podcast Salad, R3TV, Tom Green Live. (I didn’t want to clutter up this CBC blog with the details on these 12, so I’ve posted more details about my favourite 12 video podcasts, with links to subscribe yourself, on my personal blog.)

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	Asides, On-Demand TV	Posted at 10:21 am (11 Jun 2007)

If you used your DVR to record the last episode of American Idol, you might have missed something — the ending!

Turns out, producers ran the show nine minutes longer than the usual time slot. (The winner, Jordin Sparks, was crowned at 10:03 p.m.) Problem is, most DVRs would stop recording at 10:00 p.m. Oops!

This likely wasn’t an accident. Some broadcasters are starting to end their programs “off-grid” (outside of standard 1/2 hour blocks; not an industry term, I just made that up now) to prevent the recorders from switching to another channel to record something else. Silly. Irritating.

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	On-Demand TV, The Media Landscape	Posted at 12:16 pm (25 May 2007)

CBC Television has finally seen the light!   It’s launched its own channel on YouTube at www.youtube.com/cbc.

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	Asides, On-Demand TV	Posted at 2:41 pm (09 May 2007)

It’s only been online for hours, but CBC Television’s The Hour channel on YouTube has already had 14,000 visits. (Though they joined the site last year, it’s only been the last day when the channel went live.)

If you miss some of The Hour now you can watch clips on youtube.com/thehour

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	On-Demand TV, The Hour with George S.	Posted at 12:34 pm (09 May 2007)

CBC has partnered with online video site DivX to put some of its CBC Television clips online (see http://stage6.divx.com/CBC/videos ). The content includes an interview with Josh Groban, reports from around the world from The National, along with entertainment, fashion and unique short films which will be added to the site weekly.

As part of this deal, the CBC content is encoded by DivX and protected by the company’s digital rights management (DRM) technology. CBC executive Bob Kerr says that by using DivX’s technology, viewers can watch shows “in a format compatible with millions of DivX Certified consumer electronics devices from major manufacturers.”

CBC also has its own channel on Google Video, where viewers can only watch the video and email the link to others (and can not, for instance, download the clip to their iPod or post it on their blog).
Are we putting our videos in the right places? Do you visit Stage 6? Where do you watch online video?

or

Should CBC be applying digital rights management to our clips? Would you support it if we made full shows available online?

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	CBC Television, On-Demand TV	Posted at 12:46 pm (16 Mar 2007)

The BBC will air excerpts of its news and entertainment programs on two branded “channels” on popular video sharing service YouTube.com. One of the channels, to be called “BBC Worldwide” will show clips from hit BBC programs including motor show “Top Gear,” spy drama “Spooks” and the nature documentaries presented by David Attenborough.

The CBC has a similar channel on Google Video.

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	On-Demand TV	Posted at 9:51 am (02 Mar 2007)

CBC Television’s The Hour has become the first television show to release its own video podcast. They release new videos every weekday, ranging in length from two- to 12-minutes.

If you want to subscribe in iTunes, click this link. (I’m not sure what the raw XML feed URL is.)

Incidentally, I’ll have some news about a possible expansion of CBC Radio podcasts in the coming weeks…

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	On-Demand TV, Podcasting, The Hour with George S.	Posted at 4:12 pm (19 Feb 2007)

The CRTC has announced that mobile television broadcasters are exempt from licensing requirements. The exemption applies to point-to-point technologies that transmit a separate stream of broadcast video and audio to each end-user — i.e. to a cell phone. But not everyone can get into the game — the provider must be eligible to hold a Canadian broadcasting license. more

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	On-Demand TV, The Media Landscape	Posted at 1:40 pm (12 Feb 2007)

Did you know you can watch The National on-demand for free? Yep, just click here to watch (you need the free RealPlayer installed). (The link is at cbc.ca/national under “Watch The National Online”) I never catch it at night, so I usually watch in the morning while I’m doing my first sweep of email. (This has been around for a while now, but many people don’t know about it.)

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	Asides, On-Demand TV, The National	Posted at 10:33 am (21 Aug 2006)

CBC is now selling short news and lifestyle videos online for less than $1 that you can watch on your computer or drop onto your portable video player — assuming you have the right kind of video player. (Hint: You probably don’t have it.)
     CBC is offering a handful of video clips from its news programs and Fashion File show online for sale for 99 cents through the zvue.com web site. Handheld Entertainment, the company behind Zvue, says the CBC will eventually provide 3,500 video clips.
     But don’t try putting the clips on your video iPod. For now, the clips will only play on “the Zvue family of mass-market portable media players” or on your computer using Windows Media Player. The Zvue is only available at Wal-Mart or through online retailers.
     CBC programming will be added over time, said Zvue’s excited news release “from some of the most popular and successful television shows and online video selections on CBC, including Naughty Pig, Pranx, Our World, Retro, Taste of Beckles and Zed.” (Uh… that’s some of the CBC’s “most popular and successful shows”? How come the only one I’ve heard of is Zed? And it’s cancelled.)
     Close to 300 new CBC video selections will be added every month, including the top eight news stories daily, two weekly news reports from CBC’s Our World (along with a weekly movie review, and four fashion segments each week).

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	On-Demand TV	Posted at 8:10 am (13 Jun 2006)

My media diet is pretty varied — I listen to the radio and podcasts, and I watch television and vblogs like Rocketboom and Jim Dupree: Enthusiast. And I know that most people who follow new media have always said “Well, those video podcasts will never get into the mainstream ’cause you need a computer or an iPod to watch them.
     No more.
     TiVo (a PVR service in the U.S.) announced a service that delivers broadband video directly to the television sets of its subscribers. In other words: bypassing broadcasters directly.
     The company already has a slew of video casts lined up: NBA packages, New York Times movie reviews, c|net computer tips, Rocketboom, iVillage content for women, and more.

So, how does CBC compete? Easy. We put the focus on content. People will always want good content, regardless of if it comes through rabbit-ear antennas or cable or satellite or through their PVR. The distribution channell is irrelevant, yet it always gets the attention.
     I know CBC is experimenting with taking its video content and packaging it for different media and locations. This can only get much, much bigger.

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	On-Demand TV	Posted at 10:53 am (08 Jun 2006)