ChannelFlip cranks up Web TV shows
October 1 Mike Butcher
ChannelFlip, a Web TV production company which makes shows for 18-35 men, is launching its beta service this week, with a fuller launch planned next week.
ChannelFlip shows will typically be about things aimed at a ‘male’ demographic. Each episode is about five minutes, good for ’snack TV’ typical of the Web. Shows can also be exported via RSS/podcast to iPod or whatever mobile device you have.
ChannelFlip is going to start off with three shows: Unwired (gadgets), Play:Digital (games) and Discuss (films/movies).
This model is quite close to what UK blogger and media consultant Umair Haque first described in 2005 as turning TV into “microchunks“, and what VC Fred Wilson thinks is the future.
The team: Based in Oxford, the team includes Wil Harris(md), a regular panelist on the This Week in Tech podcast. Co-founder Justin Gayner is former journalist and director at QI Ltd, the company that produces the popular BBC show ‘QI’ starring Stephen Fry. Katharine Fletcher is a games geek and Ben Pritchett works on production.
Backers? This is unclear at this point, but I have it on authority that it’s backed by some former entrepreneur angel investors in the UK who cashed out of a tech company a little while back.
October 1st, 2007 at 1:03 pm
October 1st, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Comments
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am
This is exactly what web TV should NOT be. Poor production values, dodgy presenters, a thumb in the air in the hope of getting some ad revenue and making it big. And 18-35 men? They could have found a slightly less crowded marketplace. There are much better offerings going on within brand from the major publishers.
WebTV will succeed where TV-style production values are brought online - attention to script, editing, sound and so on. All missing here.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I think you’re missing the point that this is a start-up with interesting potential, not the be all and end all of web TV from day one.
And I hate to say it but you’re wrong about production values - if you look at the most popular web TV right now - Rocketboom, Revision 3 - you’ll see that consumers dig the ‘authentic’ look of relatively low budget TV (content is king…) If they want ‘real’ (irrelevant) TV they can switch on the box…