Move over Netflix: Yahoo unveils its first original TV shows in an effort to dominate the online video market
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Yahoo has unveiled plans to break into television-style original video with the launch of two comedy series, plus a new channel that will stream live concerts.
The expansion, announced yesterday in New York, makes Yahoo the latest technology company to mount a challenge to Netflix, which runs the internet's largest internet video subscription service.
Microsoft, Amazon.com and Hulu.com are among the other companies angling for a piece of the growing audience watching video piped over high-speed internet connections.
Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer has unveiled plans to break into television-style original video with the launch of two original comedy series and an internet channel that will stream live concerts. The expansion makes Yahoo the latest technology company to mount a challenge to Netflix
Yahoo's comedies are Other Space, a 'galactic adventure' set in the 22nd century, which is being created for Yahoo by Paul Feig, who directed the film Bridesmaids and who created the Freaks and Geeks television series.
The second comedy is Sin City Saints, which follows the owner of a fictional pro basketball expansion team. It is the product of executive producer Mike Tollin and director Bryan Gordon, whose resumes include TV shows such as Smallville, One Tree Hill and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The series will be shown on the Yahoo website, mobile app, Apple TV and Roku devices from next year.
Financial terms of Yahoo's deals to license the new series weren't disclosed. However, Yahoo doesn't plan to charge viewers to watch the series.
Yahoo currently trails far behind other online video providers. Financial terms of Yahoo's deals to license the new series weren't disclosed. However, Yahoo doesn't plan to charge viewers to watch the series
Yahoo's comedy is being created for Yahoo by Paul Feig (left). Microsoft has also announced several new original online video programmes. The group hired former CBS boss Nancy Tellem (right) to head up its new TV studio, which will produce shows to be watched on the firm's Xbox games console and mobile devices
NETFLIX SIGNS DEAL WITH VERIZON TO BOOST SPEEDS FOR USERS
Netflix recently agreed to pay Verizon to ensure its video streams receive priority over the ISPs network.
It comes amid growing concern over ISPs plans to throttle high-bandwidth services such as Netflix - and claims from Netflix boss Reed Hastings that payments are an 'arbitrary tax'.
The deal comes just weeks after a similar agreement with Comcast was revealed. The deal has already paid off for Comcast subscribers, and recent figures show Netflix's videos are streaming through Comcast's Internet service at their highest speeds in 17 months.
Instead, the Sunnyvale-based company hopes to make money from selling additional advertising.
'Our goal is to not only enable the future but also to help invent it,' said Kathy Savitt, Yahoo's chief marketing officer.
Yahoo boasts one of the web's largest audiences but the company has been struggling for years to come up with compelling products to reverse a long-running decline in ad sales.
It made modest progress during the opening three months of the year as its net advertising revenue rose five per cent from last year.
Chief executive Marissa Mayer has repeatedly said it may take several more years before Yahoo's ad sales are keeping pace with the overall internet market.
Yahoo also announced a new partnership with concert promoter Live Nation that will involve streaming one live concert every day beginning in the summer.
Companies such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Microsoft have been looking to compete with traditional TV programming to increase revenue. Netflix recently agreed to pay Verizon to ensure its video streams receive priority over the ISPs network
Internet companies are increasingly rushing to produce original online video programming, as consumers spend more time on the web and as devices such as the Roku and Microsoft Corp's Xbox allow consumers to stream online video straight to their television sets.
Microsoft announced several new original online video programmes, including a football reality show, earlier on Monday.
Microsoft has signed up comedians Sarah Silverman and Seth Green for its projects.
It hired former CBS boss Nancy Tellem to head up its new TV studio, which will produce shows to be watched on the firm's Xbox games console as well as its mobile devices.
Amazon Prime has also added multiple scripted and animated shows to its subscription-based Prime service, and only sweetened the deal with the recently-released Fire TV box meant to stream the content directly on to televisions.
XBOX MOVES AHEAD WITH ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING PLAN
When it comes to original programming, Microsoft is going to throw it at the Xbox and see what sticks.
After nearly two years since launching a studio to create new shows to be streamed on Xbox consoles, Microsoft is finally ready to serve an assorted helping of original programming this summer for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. However, viewers shouldn't expect Xbox Originals, as they're called, to be available the same way that content is provided on Netflix and Hulu.
'We don't necessarily know what approach will work, and we don't necessarily know what approach won't work,' noted Nancy Tellem, the president of Xbox Entertainment Studios during a recent press preview of Xbox Originals at Microsoft's offices in Santa Monica, California.
Ms Tellem, who previously was president of CBS Entertainment, said no decisions have been made as to how each Xbox series will be available — either as part of the Xbox Live subscription, for sale individually or available for free through advertising partnerships.
She said an Xbox Originals app would be added to the consoles' user interface, and each new Xbox series might be differently distributed.
Among the shows coming to Xbox this year are the street soccer docu-series 'Every Street United,' which will be the first to debut in July, and the six-part tech-centric documentary series 'Signal to Noise.' The first installment — 'Atari: Game Over; — chronicles this past weekend's excavation of a landfill thought to be filled with copies of Atari's infamous 'E.T.' game.
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