Online TV on TV

So Channel Five has become the first broadcaster to buy the rights to an online TV show, explicitly Sofia's Diary, Bebo's successor to the popular KateModern show.

Bebo says it 'represents a milestone for television broadcasting' and Five wants to 'play a role pioneering the next stage of entertainment.'

Interestingly, Sofia's Diary, like KateModern before it, is not funded by ads but by in-video brand placement from companies including Microsoft, Orange, Proctor and Gamble and Disney.

Viewing figures are around the 5 million mark on bebo and Five will be hoping to capture back some of the audience it has lost to online media over the past two years and it will be interesting to see if other broadcasters follow suit....

MySpace, Hi-Five!

So Channel Five yesterday announced it will be producing a 'youth-focused' news broadcast, distributed on social network, MySpace. This is the second UK broadcaster (the BBC signed up in January) to begin distributing content on MySpace this year.

So is online TV finally ready for the mainstream consumer?

As always, content and access will be the key. Broadcasters and content owners are spending time and money ensuring their content is available on as many platforms (IPTV, mobile, online) as possible and accessible from as many places as possible (The BBC recently inked a deal with our client The Cloud to offer access to BBC content free from 7,500 locations across the UK).

2008 is finally looking to be online video/TV's year now bandwidth has caught up with the US. And here's just a few companies proving just that:

• YouTube - you have probably heard of them...

• iTunes - finally offering movies and TV shows oustide the US. WIN!

• blinkBox - send clips from your favourite films with personalised messages to your mates
  

• Babelgum - what Joost tried to be....

• Hulu - new venture from Newscorp and NBC offering ad-supported free content from over 50 TV networks, movie studios and web-based productions

• Kangeroo - the online venture between BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and ITV which claims to do for broadband what Freeview did for Digital TV