The Olympics, Car Porn, and Online Syndication

Streaming Media East, New York - George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer, said the broadcast giant plans to stream 2,200 live hours of Olympic events via the Internet and mobile phones. NBC's future for making money with online video is by generating and syndicating vertical content. And oh yes, Hulu is great too.

The Olympic effort will be delivered with Microsoft's Silverlight. "We think the video will be really compelling and Silverlight provide interactivity, Microsoft has great history of doing video on line. We're not worried about their development cycle." George wouldn't say how much Microsoft might have coughed up to NBC for use and support of the new software.

Using its successful cable companies as models, NBC is building specifically focused content building and marketing efforts around top vertical markets, "digital cable networks if you will."  NBC will syndicate content it and its affiliates create, cutting deals with vertical market websites and selling ads against it. The company has found early success with the auto industry, with one of its properties creating an extensive library of short videos that record "every nook and cranny on every model of car ... it's really like car porn," Kliavkoff stated.

Health care is another opportunity to tap into existing content being generated by NBC affiliates. "They produce in excess of 120 health videos a week, play them once, and then put them off the shelf ... think about all the great health sites that are text based. You can syndicate video to them."

Kliavkoff was an interim CEO at Hulu and still sits on their board, so his feeling for the online video site might be taken with a grain of salt. "If [Hulu] does its job really well, it will have much broader content. I happen to think it is the best experience on the Internet," he said. "You'll see more content, better content, and I think a priority you'll see is to move that to other platforms, get it to TV and mobile platforms."   Delivery to connected Internet devices is a priority  Hulu will focus on in the future.

Surprisingly, making first-run TV shows free online has actually proved to be helpful for cable operators. Studies indicate a viewer that plays catch up with shows online is more likely to watch the next episode on broadcast television, with serialized dramas gaining significant benefit. "You can catch up on the story and rejoin it next week," Kliavkoff said.  Cable operators like driving television viewing and watching back episodes adds value to their broadband offerings.

"The part that is still up in the air, we won't know for four to five years, what effect [online will have] on syndication, our second-run business," he said. "I don't  think we know what effect all that content will have on long-term syndication values and we won't know for a while."

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