Episodes of Ugly Betty Included in Disney/ABC Deal With Veoh
ABC is slowly joining the online content race by penning a deal with Veoh Networks to stream full episodes of its programming. This has the potential to be awesome (with a few caveats, which I’ll get to shortly).
Veoh, privately funded company, which like rival YouTube, began as a user-generated video Web site, already has deals with CBS, Viacom and Warner Bros. Veoh will also have highlights and clips from ESPN (awesome!)
So, what’s the caveat? Veoh has to use the ABC-branded media player; it is in no way embedded. I tried it out, and clicking on an episode (so far, only episode 2.05, A League of Their Own is available) basically takes you to ABCs site and launches the player most of us Ugly Betty fans already use.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the quality of ABC’s episode player, but I’m trying to figure out what Veoh gets out of this. Most of us who watch Ugly Betty online, in this scenario, will just go directly to ABC’s site.
Really, in its current form, ABC is just buying a little new traffic. I sincerely hope they can tweak the interface in Veoh, and make the experience a little more seamless. If they do, this could be really cool.
Other shows that will be available through Veoh through this deal include Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Desperate Housewives.
Source: Tech News World
Image: Newscom
Still, I wonder if viewers from outside the US will be able to view the episodes. I know that is a problem when trying to see the videos. It would be better to have the videos on VEOH instead of providing a link to the ABC site. Personally, I would just go to ABC thus skipping VEOH completely.