CNN’s Pipeline opens stream of ad-free video news
By Greg Gatlin/ The Messenger
Thursday, December 8, 2005
For the price of downloading one song from iTunes, you can spend a day watching live news feeds on CNN’s new 24-hour commercial-free online TV site.
But will people actually pay to do this?
I did yesterday.
CNN on Monday went live in 25 countries with Pipeline (www.cnn.com/pipeline), a broadband video service designed “to revolutionize the way people view news online.”
And you have to pay for it. Subscriptions cost $2.95 per month or $24.95 per year. Or you can pay 99 cents for a one-day pass.
Pipeline operates out of its own control room in Atlanta and draws on the cable network’s global news gathering resources to offer a steady stream of raw video and a fairly broad choice of stories.
“We wanted to create a broadband network experience that was completely different and designed for a PC user,” says Susan Grant, executive vice president with CNN News Services.
CNN is streaming four different channels — it calls them pipes — of live breaking-news video, news conferences and speeches, along with packaged news segments, top stories and video features available on demand.
At times it has a C-SPAN feel. Yesterday, I was switching back and forth between a lengthy news conference with Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who was taking swipes at the Defense Department, President Bush, who was proclaiming progress in Iraq, and disgraced Spokane Mayor Jim West talking to reporters about his ouster over a sex scandal.
But I was also sucked in by live feeds of a San Diego fuel tanker fire and the killing of an airline passenger who claimed he had a bomb at Miami International Airport.
In its bid to attract paying customers, Pipeline has a few things going for it. First, it’s ad free and it’s cheap. Apple Computer has made it pretty clear that consumers will pay 99 cents for a song. It seems to me they’d do the same to watch a big news story play out on their computer at work or wherever.
Another draw is that it’s live, which is what consumers want when news breaks. As I spoke on the phone with Rafat Ali, editor and publisher of the online publication Paid Content, he paused to point out that the site was running live video of SWAT teams on the Miami airport tarmac.
Video is often raw, or unedited — CNN has a policy against showing car chases in its TV broadcasts, but it will show chases on Pipeline. And gives consumers choice in news coverage and offers news conferences and speeches in their entirety for those seeking greater depth.
The drawbacks: Endless streams of raw video can get boring, especially without commentary or context. And computer users may find some technical glitches.
business.bostonherald.com |
