Comcast Plans a 'TV Guide' on the Web
Listings Service May Prompt Interest In On-Demand Fare
By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld -- Multichannel News, 9/3/2006 8:00:00 PM
Comcast Corp. as early as this week will announce a Web-based service that will act as an electronic guide and search engine for computer users trying to sort through thousands of scheduled television shows, on-demand videos and high-definition programs.
The service, to be called TV Planner, will be introduced at the same time Comcast launches its first “fall lineup” of video-on-demand programming. That will underscore the Web service's ability to sort through large amounts of on-demand programming quickly, according to the company.
Ultimately, viewers will be able to click on a listing shown on a Web browser and instruct a digital recording machine to store a copy of a chosen program. And an “Amazon-like” recommendation engine will also suggest what other programs might interest the viewer, the company said. But those features are not part of the initial service.
Nonetheless, TV Planner is an early example of the kind of Internet business that Comcast envisions delivering on a wide basis.
“Wouldn't it be great if there was a national site that was devoted to helping you figure out what to watch, where you want to watch it?'' said chief operating officer Steve Burke. “And in some instances provide it for you, but never provide it as a linear, cable-like channel?''
LIMITED AVAILABILITY
The TV Planner service launching this fall will be available only to Comcast customers. But those customers can reach the service whether they buy their Internet access from Comcast or not.
The 10 million Comcast High-Speed Internet customers will be able to reach the service through the company's Comcast.net portal, which provides a wide range of video and multimedia services.
Comcast's other 12 million or so customers can also search for scheduled shows and on-demand programs by going directly to a Web site set up for providing the guide services.
A test site for delivering these services has been operating in recent weeks at www.tvplanner.net. It is the foreshadowing of a service that would help consumers sort through all their choices of how to get video content, whether the programs are found on conventional television, in libraries of video clips, digital video recorders, the iTunes Music Store or other download services and other outlets, as they emerge.
The site allows a visitor to enter a ZIP code and — if the address is in a Comcast service area — find all occurrences of a show by tapping in its name in a search field on a Web page.
The results can be narrowed to shows found in high-definition resolution or in Comcast's repository of videos that can be ordered on demand.
In its present form, the site only shows where and when a particular show or movie can be found, on a Comcast system. In the future, the company said visitors will be able to use the site to instruct a digital recorder to save a chosen program for later viewing.
TEMPLATE FOR TV
The service is designed to appeal to TV viewers who do not want to interrupt other family members while they are watching programs already in progress; and workers who want to see what's on their cable system to view when — or before — they get home.
That could limit its appeal. “The vast majority of people make their choices” about what to watch “when they sit down on the couch,'' said Ian Olgeirson, a senior analyst at Kagan Research.
But what Comcast customers see on the Web may ultimately be found on their television sets, in future versions of electronic program guides. Olgeirson sees the TV Planner as a “template” for what's coming, if typing in search terms, for instance, can be made easy on home users' remote controls. Today's controls lack easy-to-use keyboards.
Nonetheless, the introduction of a Web-based guide by a cable system operator “is a significant first step” towards creating what a “consistent experience” across the television and the personal computer, said Andy Addis, executive vice president of marketing for Hillcrest Laboratories, a Rockville, Md., supplier of TV-navigation technology.
This first effort may look like a “tactical implementation” of a Web-based service, but it has larger implications, he said. A cable operator that provides an “unparalleled customer experience” will have a better shot at beating back telephone, satellite and Internet-based rivals.
“It's vital that they do that because everyone is taking aim at their business,” he said.
NATIONAL BUSINESS
The service is also a window into Comcast's intent to create video-related businesses that operate nationwide, through the Internet. Burke said it would “make sense” to have TV Planner operate outside the geographical areas where Comcast's cable systems are laid. Any business operating on the Internet “should be national,” he said.
But, he noted in an interview with Multichannel News, any national business that Comcast would build on the Net would “not in any way be competitive with traditional cable.” Cable operators historically have steered away from launching services that would stray across geographical boundaries and compete with those of other operators.
Right now, the Web-based programming guide can't be used to record programs. That function may not be delivered for another 18 months or two years, the company said.
For one thing, a viewer would have to be able to communicate directly from a personal computer to a set top box with a digital recorder in it, to accomplish the task.
From the beginning, though, the service will be unlike existing guides by being able to help viewers narrow down their choices of large libraries of programs stored at operators' headends.
That is designed to spur interest in on-demand programming, which distinguishes the cable operator from satellite-delivered video services such as DirecTV or Dish Network. Comcast's On Demand library now includes more than 7,500 titles. Customers have played back one of its on-demand titles nearly 3 billion times in the past two-and-a-half years.
Burke gave an indication of Comcast's ambitions at The Wall Street Journal's “D: All Things Digital” conference in June.
“We would like to be the Amazon of video on the Internet. We have some assets other companies don't have,” Burke said then.
The company in December created the Comcast Interactive Media division, headed by president Amy Banse. That division, Burke indicated, is charged with coming up with national businesses that Comcast can operate on the Internet.
“We think the PC can become a dashboard for the entertainment experience for our customers,” Banse told MCN in December.
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The format that comcast offered before was much better. It used more of the screen to give me what i wanted. It was faster. It was completely accurate.
the new layout is absolutely weak and I would be sorry to those that thought they did a good job, unless the comcast team that developed this can listen to those customers that will actually figure out what happened and respond back. It is too hard to use, and i am not talking about skills: too much time and clicking and back and forth. The data is inaccurate or not in sync with what is actually on tv at the present time. the "Now" button doesn't even work.
RV - 10/19/2008 6:52:00 PM EDT -
All I want is what Channels are on each of the Plans you have and the price of each one.
Verna Perier - 10/17/2008 10:37:00 PM EDT -
We would like to see an internet guide for On Demand-- even if we had to
have a password to enter it if we were Comcast tv dvd box customers.
Nancy Blazis - 2/11/2008 7:44:00 AM EST -
it is the most stupidmost complicated thing I have ever known
Mad Customer - 9/29/2007 1:46:00 PM EDT -
Great !DThis is what I''''''''''''''''ve been looking for
Sara Kalicki - 8/10/2007 5:33:00 PM EDT
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