Brightcove launches free commercial Internet TV services for content owners

Brightcove, an Internet TV pioneer, today unveiled a new free service, the Brightcove Network, that lets content owners of all sizes launch their own commercial Internet video channels at no cost and generate revenue through advertising and video download sales.

Coinciding with the launch of the Brightcove Network, the company announced the availability of several new services designed to generate revenue and increase distribution for Internet TV channels. To make earning money from commercial content easier, Brightcove launched a new video advertising network and the ability to offer high-quality video downloads for purchase or rental.

To help online video programmers reach new audiences, the company introduced the beta of a new consumer destination for discovering and interacting with Internet TV channels. In addition, Brightcove has partnered with AOL to give content owners the option to easily sell their pay-media downloads through the AOL Video portal using Brightcove.

The Brightcove Network gives any content owner the ability to build a commercial Internet TV channel, launch it on their site, syndicate it to other web sites, and distribute it on Brightcove.com. The service is free to use.

Content owners who use the Brightcove Network give Brightcove the right to sell advertising in their videos, and in turn they receive 50% of the revenue from ads that run in their channels. In addition, content owners can choose to offer video downloads for rental or purchase. They have the option to set any retail price they choose, with a $0.99 minimum, and they earn 70% of the sale price for each transaction.

To expand the revenue and distribution options for Internet TV producers using Brightcove, the company launched several new initiatives that support the Brightcove Network:

Advertising Network - Brightcove AdNet, the new Brightcove advertising network, aggregates online audiences across major and niche Internet TV channels giving marketers a more efficient way to reach consumers and offering online video programmers a way to more easily generate advertising revenue.

Pay-Media Service - The new pay-media service gives content owners using Brightcove the ability to earn revenue from the sale of online video by offer high-quality video downloads for purchase or rental at prices they determine.

Syndication Marketplace - Expanding distribution options for Internet TV channels, the company has introduced the first beta of a new online marketplace for discovering Internet TV channels that are available for syndication to third party web sites.

AOL(R) Video Distribution - Content owners using the Brightcove platform will have the ability to distribute their paid video content through the AOL Video portal (http://video.aol.com).

Consumer Destination - Finally, the company announced plans to make Brightcove.com a consumer destination for discovering and interacting with Internet TV channels. The first beta of the destination site was released today, and the company plans to add significant new features during the next six months.

For content owners that want greater control over their Internet TV business, including full control over the sale and delivery of advertising within their content, Brightcove will continue to offer the Brightcove Platform.

The Brightcove Platform gives content owners a broad set of services for building online video businesses. Video programmers who choose to use the Brightcove Platform pay for it based on the volume of traffic that views their content each month. Moreover they have the option to use Brightcove revenue generation and distribution options including the advertising network, pay media, syndication marketplace, AOL Video, and the Brightcove.com destination.

About Brightcove

Brightcove is an open Internet TV service that empowers video producers and programmers to build broadband businesses while giving viewers more choices and control over their use of video and television. Founded by Internet pioneer Jeremy Allaire in 2004 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Brightcove is a private company led by a management team that includes senior executives from Allaire, Macromedia, ATG, Comcast, MTV Networks, Lycos, News Corp., MediaVest, and Discovery Networks.

More about Brightglove’s business model

This extract comes from a news article on AdAge.com:

Major media and entertainment content owners — including movie studios, almost every leading music company, the Big Four broadcasters, cablers and a host of the country’s leading publishers — have made or are poised to make Brightcove their broadband-video-distribution and monetization platform of choice.

And unlike, say, YouTube, Brightcove’s model from the get-go incorporated fully licensed content from these players, and doesn’t rely heavily on the long-tail of consumer-posts.

While Brightcove’s offerings are certainly designed, a la YouTube, to allow anyone to publish broadband-video content, they also dovetail with many existing media companies’ models. For example, allowing them to use their sales teams to sell ads against their broadband offerings, or allowing them to offer their video content for syndication to anyone who wants it through a simple “click of a button” type tool.

Brightcove offers a marketplace where media owners can syndicate their content to affiliates across the web, a flexible ad model that lets publishers sell their own advertising or, starting today, use a Brightcove ad network and e-commerce solutions.

When content is syndicated, the distributor, media owner and Brightcove all get a cut of the ad revenue. If Natpe and Mipcom are the real-world syndication markets, Brightcove aims to be a self-service replication of their offerings.

And a final word from The Man himself…

“There’s no question that we’re out-innovating media companies in creating platforms for distributing TV on the internet,” Mr. Allaire said. “The question is: What’s the core competency of a media company? To put birds in the sky or lay fiber optic cables or create and brand content?”

Visit the Brightcove Web site.