Comcast Unit Cuts Web Deals To Handle Online Video

Comcast Unit Cuts Web Deals To Handle Online Video

The Wall Street Journal

The Seattle-based subsidiary of Comcast, thePlatform, has reached deals to deliver video to Web sites aimed at subscribers to the high-speed Internet services of Time Warner Cable Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp. and Cox Communications Inc.

Cable operators are increasingly seeking to become destinations for online video, as consumers spend more time watching television shows, movies and other clips that they download from Apple Inc.'s iTunes, Google Inc.'s YouTube and other Internet sources. ThePlatform provides a service that functions as a management system for converting TV shows into the latest online-video formats, inserting promotions from online-advertising networks and transmitting the content to distribution networks that speed up the delivery of Web video to consumers. The company earns money like a utility, charging clients an undisclosed fee for the amount of video they store online and a usage fee every time a user clicks on the clients' videos.

Comcast is also making a play to become a technology-service provider for other companies that want to put video online, signing up clients that include cable operators, Verizon Wireless and Hulu, a popular Web site for TV episodes that is jointly owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and News Corp., parent company of Dow Jones & Co. -

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