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Irish firms lucrative music video deal 02.07.07 |
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| (Sunday Business Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) An Irish mobile television company has signed a multimillion euro deal with the next YouTube. Dublin-based Wildwave will begin broadcasting music videos on the online television portal Joost, under the Irish firms Independent Asian Music TV (I-amtv) brand. We expect that this will be worth several million over a number of years, said Stephen McCormack, chief executive of i-amtv and Wildwave. The deal is an ad-sharing deal. I-amtv will run both video-on-demand and continuous channel services on Joost. McCormack said it will later feature interviews, concerts, documentaries and YouTube style user-generated content. The channel has three main audiences, said McCormack. Theyre music fans between 15an d 35, mostly in Asia, who want to check out the Asian indie music scene. In addition to I-amtv, Wildwave operates three mobile television channels. These are the Wildlight Film Channel, Havoc Sports and Havoc Music. McCormack said that the company is currently developing a number of extra channels, including a sports network, an Irish music channel and a documentary channel. McCormack said Wildwave employs 20 people and has annual revenues of more than e2 million. He said the company was finalising a funding round, but declined to say how much this would be or who the backers are. McCormack said i-amtv is planning further roll-outs on mobile networks, broadband operators, cable operators and YouTube. He said it is also currently available on Sonys Connect internet platform. Joost is the latest online TV application to attract attention from the internet industry. Set up last year by the founders of Kazaa and Skype, Niklas Jennstrom and Janus Friis, it has attracted more than e40 million in venture capital from backers including Sequoia Capital, which funded Google and YouTube. It allows internet users to watch television stations online. Joost currently has more than a million viewers, said McCormack. Its expected to grow to 20 million viewers this year and to top 100million next year. Its the next YouTube. |
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