Contentinople - Eve Bergazyn - News Bits: BSkyB Takes Web Shows to... the Web

Written by Eve Bergazyn

Tuesday, November 11. 2008 at 11:35 AM EST Post a comment

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BSkyB Ltd. (NYSE, London: BSY) takes the middleman out of showing its content online. Oh wait, the company is the middleman.

The U.K. satcaster is planning an '09 launch of a subscription-based online TV service, offering up some of its most popular content online, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The service will be part of the Sky Player, Sky's online video-on-demand (VOD) setup, and a Web subscription will be separate from a satellite TV one.

The in-the-pipes offering hasn't been given the thumbs-up yet by content owners, nor have the possible difficulties arising from the higher-bandwidth requirements been fully addressed by the company.

In other news:

Ex-Facebook exec Owen Van Natta has taken the CEO spot at Project Playlist, the "social music experiment," according to All Things D. This comes after he "withdrew" his candidacy to head up the recently launched MySpace Music, and nine months after he left Facebook to become a CEO elsewhere.

Speaking of Facebook, the social networking behemoth tries a new advertising strategy to generate revenue. The yet-to-monetize social networking site is launching "engagement ads," reports The Wall Street Journal. The new system will ~~trick~~ encourage users to participate in advertising, say, by commenting on or "attending" a movie trailer or TV premiere, which will then show up in the user's feed.

And nearly four generations of children (most of them grown) who watched Sesame Street will now be able to revisit the show via clips and full episodes on Hulu LLC , YouTube Inc. , and iTunes, reports Reuters. Episodes from Season 35 and on (they're on Season 39 currently) are available for $1.99 on iTunes (including such gems as "Telly Falls Off His Pogo Stick"), for which Sesame Workshop will receive 70 percent of revenue generated. YouTube plans on launching a Sesame Street channel with official clips from the show.