If you haven’t heard it by now, CBSNews have decided to create a web only 24hour newschannel. In addition to that there will be a blog and a huge amount of videos you can stream on demand any time you want. One of the key elements of the new CBSNEws.com will be a “cable bypass” startegy that will bring breaking news and other video, including reports and alysis, straight to the web. Currently all cable channels have an agreenment with cable and satellite providers that prevents them from streaming their broadcasts on the web.
via LostRemote
CBS announces 24-hour broadband news
ABCNews have been streaming ABCNews Now for a while, CNN is also going the route with exclusive web only channel at the end of this summer, and now CBS. Remains to be seen what NBC will do but my guess is that they’re going offer something similar.
The other thing I am curious about is local TV stations. Clearly the big boys have come to realize something I’ve said often, more and more of us are choosing the web as our source for news. The big networks’ advantage is the amount of video they have at their disposal. I’m not so sure that local stations have a lot of meaningful video content. By that I mean anything else other than the latest car that got on fire 8 hours ago on a small street in nowhere neighborhood where nobody was affected. There’s not much indepth reporting going on unfortunately.
And with the rise of DVR (Digital video recorder) and what CBS and CNN are doing, local stations will have to do something. Linear TV, while not dieing yet, is slowly giving way to the “watch whatever you want whenever you want” trend. And those who do not adapt will suffer the consequences.
My guess is that CBS stations around the country would probably have a good use of the new web channel, either providing hourly updates, or even producing web only newscasts during the day. The difference here is we won’t be streaming for long if all we get is car fires, and other non-events like this.
What do you think?
