VMIX launches NBC channel

By Vivek | March 13th, 2007 at 12:16 am ET         

VMIX, the web video startup, will officially announce its partnership with NBC today and also unveil the NBC channel located on the site. The custom channel will be hosted and controlled by NBC Universal Television and will contain popular content from NBC shows such as “30 Rock,” “Heroes,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “Scrubs” and “My Name Is Earl”. Earlier I had written about VMIX closing its second round of funding in January. Based out of based San Diego, CA, VMIX is led by Greg Kostello who has pretty extensive experience in media and startup world. Greg was President of Vivendi-Universal Net Technologies where he integrated the advances made in technology from MP3.com into the music industry’s commercial systems. Previous to the sale of MP3.com to Vivendi-Universal in 2001, Greg was Executive VP of Technology for MP3.com.

VMIX is going on a very different route as compared to the regular video sharing site. You can compare it more with what Joost and Babelgum are trying to do - deliver legal video content. Only difference as compared to these upstarts is that VMIX already has signed up quite a few content providers including Fox Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Bravo TV to enable legal content mashups. VMIX main emphasis on working with larger media companies who are bit tired of being heckled around by likes to Youtube. In fact VMIX’s financial driver continues to be the white-label solution it has been offering as part of VMIX CORE. CORE is an out of the box solution for media companies and content producers that provides customizable tools and solutions to get on the UGC wave. VMIX has already partnered with Tribune Corporation to power enable UGC features on 13 of its properties. VMIX charges for licensing, setup , and usage fees for the white label solution that helps the startup keep focus on cutting more deals as compared to working on newer ad formats.

As it seems with this announcement, Youtube is not the only one cutting out the deals. Even from the media company perspective they are better off diversifying otherwise Google would most likely end up having web like control over video networks too.

Links:
NBC on VMIX