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Though cable networks ride the same pipe that provides high-speed Internet connections, many have been moving at a narrowband speed to add a broadband play to their Web properties. But that may change in 2001 as several cable channels plan to get up to speed with their Web initiatives.
Leading the charge into broadband are the educational channels. Armed with plenty of unused video and original material, their aim is to make their channels even more attractive to an inherently information-hungry audience.
One of the most aggressive in broadband development is TechTV. Given its audience of technophiles, it's a no-brainer that the network has jumped into broadband ahead of the pack, according to John Gilles, director of strategic development for TechTV. About half of the approximately 1 million video streams its companion Web site serves up monthly are sent to users with a high-speed connection.
Last year, TechTV actually toyed with the idea of creating a separate broadband Web portal and went so far as to create a prototype. But two sites aren't necessarily better than one, so TechTV decided to push its broadband strategy back under its narrowband portal.
"The reason for that mostly had to do with branding and cost," Gilles says. "We didn't want to create branding confusion by launching a separate site from TechTV.com."
Another factor had to do with the spectacular failure of broadband-only content sites in 2000.
"One of the lessons we learned last year was there is no provable revenue model for broadband exclusive content," Gilles says. "The DENs and Pseudos proved that."
So it hired an outside firm to help integrate the broadband content on the existing site. With one click, users can go to this area, which features a TechTV-branded media player configured for Real Networks' Real Player, Microsoft Corp.'s Streaming Media Player or Apple's QuickTime.
The broadband area offers short-form videos, including content that users can see only on the Web site. TechTV recently hired producers and provided a studio to create this content, available at TechTV.com on the content channels for Real, Microsoft and Apple and channel partners including Yahoo!
The channel has also announced the April launch of Tech Live, a broadband interactive link to five hours of original live TV programming weekly. A Web companion section will link users to the TV programs, letting them interact on the spot with the live shows. Users can tap in using either their TV and a PC simultaneously or just the PC-with the latter aimed for workplace viewers who don't have access to a television, Gilles says.
Those workplace users will have access to streaming video and audio of the show, text hyperlinks, instant messaging and Flash animations. "For us, the killer application in broadband is not streaming video but audience participation," Gilles says.
The audience interaction isn't just e-mail questions, either. Last year, the network gave away 10,000 Net Cam digital cameras, and now viewers regularly beam in video questions to on-air computer experts. That, along with the broadband content offerings on the Web site, is changing TechTV's television programming.
"We are melting the screen between ourselves and our producers," Gilles says. "That really becomes a compelling story for content creation because it changes the production model in bringing viewers directly into the programming."
Another network that is starting to dabble in broadband is science and nature-oriented Discovery Networks, which runs Discovery, Animal Planet, Discovery Heath, TLC and Travel Channel.
Discovery has just begun using broadband content to help promote its major programming events, giving online users a crack at video footage not seen on the program as well as related interactive games. Then there's the Preview channel, a daily roundup that was added in January to the discovery.com site featuring preview clips of up to three minutes in broadband and narrowband format. And this summer, Discovery is looking at creating simultaneous Web and television programming events.
"One of the things from a strategic standpoint about broadband is it allows us to utilize a lot of the video assets we have and to tell stories in a new and different way," says Abby Greensfelder, director of new media strategy and programming for the Discovery Channel. "And as a cable company, creating exclusively broadband content allows us to, in working with cable operators, promote the use of modems and the distribution of broadband as a whole. Since a lot of consumers are saying 'Hey, what's the difference? What's so unique about broadband?' we think we're in a real good position to be able to create some unique content that's specifically tailored for the broadband environment."
While broadband users may represent only 15 percent of the total online population, cable channels do have an incentive to promote high-speed content. "Our natural business partners are going to be leaders in delivering interactive content, whether to the set-top or to the PC," says John Herne, convergence director for Discovery.com. "But the short term is a little problematic, in that the technology is outstripping the business model and the audience we have right now-all the studies we see show these very nice exponential curves, but we don't see them begin to kick in until a couple of years from now."
An example of Discovery's broadband content is material created for a special aired late last year detailing the new International Space Station. Discovery.com broadband users can explore a three-dimensional version of the station, and access video showing the various parts of the orbital complex.
Choosing the subjects for broadband content is not just random, however.
"There has to be a strong business rationale behind it, and that's I think one of the reasons why we are being strategic about what types of content we decided to create in broadband," Greensfelder says. "So we are creating broadband specials around television specials that already have heavy consumer promotion behind them and are usually commissioned programs so we have the rights to footage and so forth."
Discovery just now is beginning to track how many broadband users are visiting, but early results from the space station special indicate it was one of the higher-traffic areas on the Discovery.com portal. "It seemed that people were also staying longer," Greensfelder notes. "I think the hope would be not only are they staying longer, but depending on how these experiences are created, there would be more recidivism."
Creativity aside, revenue is the real Web engine. And Discovery has found some hope with its initial broadband forays. "We got on average double the click-throughs on our ads in the broadband space versus the narrowband site," Hearne says. "We're also imagining the broadband consumer is a really attractive one for advertisers, in that they are paying extra for their online service. So intuitively we would say that is a more affluent consumer."
For now, Discovery will focus on creating a minimum of one broadband special per quarter and expanding the video content on the preview channel. "I think we are certainly increasing video with the preview channel," Hearne says. "That will be an interesting experiment for us, because we know television can drive Web usage quite nicely, and we are very interested in seeing if broadband gives us opportunities to drive folks back onto television."
CourtTV, meanwhile, has come to its own broadband verdict: create now to drive future audience. While the number of broadband users is still relatively small, CourtTV Online general manager Galen Jones says CourtTV Online must evolve in step with the broadband market to assure future Web traffic.
"It's very important, but part of the importance relates to the future more than the present," he says. "Going forward I think it is going to just take on increasing importance and I think what we're going to end up with is an interactive environment where one is at least as likely to go to a video segment as to text pages."
CourtTV recently acquired two Web properties-thesmokinggun.com and crimelibrary.com. While crimelibrary.com will remain as an collection of trial and crime articles, Jones says there are plans to possibly expand thesmokinggun.com's text bank of notable legal documents and government files to include film archive material.
On the CourtTV.com site, video clips of trials are encoded for narrowband and broadband users. It also provides a useful outlet for the masses of video footage that don't make airtime. "We don't have a second network, so in effect we can use the Web site as our second network," Jones says.
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