By Stevie Smith Jul 9, 2007, 13:02 GMT
Online television and media delivery specialist Joost has this week scooped a landmark exclusive deal with leading broadcaster VH1. The partnership between Joost and Viacom’s VH1 will see the peer-to-peer (P2P) online service bringing new comedy show "I Hate My 30s" to viewers before the official broadcast premiere.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Joost will run the entire season of "I Hate My 30s" starting on Monday, July 16 – which equates to 10 days earlier than the show will make its standard premiere appearance on VH1.
"This is exactly the kind of partnership we would like to have with content owners," commented Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, Joost’s exec VP of content strategy and acquisition. "We see this as Phase 2 in creating value with content owners."
Joost, which was founded by Skype and Kazaa creators Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, currently has around 500,000 users as it continues to progress through its extended beta stage while steadily adding content partnerships to its portfolio.
New York-based Viacom Inc. is already an established Joost investor (along with other funding contributors CBS Corp., Index Ventures, and Sequoia Capital) and signed up with Joost in February to deliver content from MTV, Black Entertainment Television, Comedy Central, and Paramount Pictures.
"This is one of those shows that will travel well and get in to the pop-culture ether… It's a really cool, clever show, and this will get it into the hands of people that can share it and blog about it," enthused VH1 vice president Tom Calderone regarding the airing of I Hate My 30s. "The couple of times we've done it, it creates a lot of buzz," he added in reference to debut episodes of The Surreal Life and Hogan Knows Best that opened on VH1.com. "We don't do it all the time. We want to pick the right shows."
Joost’s online P2P TV and media content distribution service is vying for purchase in a market consisting of Google’s hugely popular YouTube, and it also faces competition from the new partnership formed between NBC Universal and News Corp., which owns community-driven Web 2.0 phenomenon MySpace. As well as its content deal with Viacom, Joost has also penned similar deals with Warner Music, Turner Broadcasting, and Sony Pictures Television, and is also lined up to join the new CBS Interactive Audience Network that’s scheduled to arrive before the close of summer 2007.
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