Joost has announced a deal to carry content from global video carrier JumpTV, Inc. that will will bring a whole slate of international or ethnic programming to the fledgling Internet TV provider. JumpTV owns the rights to television shows from networks in 70 countries. The company’s business model is to pipe the shows over the Internet, and sell advertisements and subscriptions. The programming is geared towards expats and ethnic communities.
Joost, until recently operating under the code name ‘The Venice Project,’ is the brainchild of Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. The service is still in beta test mode.
The Joost team has been busy of late arranging deals to carry video content from a variety of media publishers. Just last week, it was announced that Viacom Inc. agreed to let Joost show programming from popular properties MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, and Comedy Central.
About two weeks ago Joost announced the following list of content additions in an e-mail to beta testers:
- Documentaries from National Geographic;
- Loud noise and fast cars from the Indy Racing League;
- Healthy living programming from Lime;
- A variety of reality series in the Lazy TV channel from Endemol;
- Cartoons like Rocky and Bullwinkle in Saturday Morning TV (Classic Media);
- A lineup of independent film makers from IndieFlix;
- More reality TV with the Bridezillas series from September Films;
- Video gaming tricks and reviews form Gamestar;
- Comical, irreverent and edgy programming from Bite TV, and
- Cool new Bollywood music videos from Savvn
In related news, Google’s YouTube announced a deal with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) whereby Three YouTube channels will show clips of BBC news and entertainment programming.
According to BBC reports, the broadcaster hopes the deal will help it reach YouTube’s 70 million+ monthly users and drive extra traffic to its own Web site.
There is also an advertising revenue share agreement as part of the announcement.
The three channels will include:
BBC: One of the BBC’s two entertainment channels will be a “public service” featuring no advertising.
BBC Worldwide: The second entertainment channel will feature self-contained clips mining popular programs in the BBC’s archive. Clips from Top Gear, The Mighty Boosh and nature programs presented by David Attenborough will appear here.
BBC News: The news channel, which will be launched later this year, will show about 30 news clips per day. It will be advertising funded.
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