October 23, 2006
AOL Expanding Content with New Film, TV Digital Distribution Deals

As the digital video distribution competition gets continually tighter, companies are doing all they can to get their particular platform noticed. This includes expanding as quickly as possible to incorporate as much content as possible. Of course, Apple iTunes already has the leg up in that regard, but companies are striking deals left and right for digital cross-platform release of their content, as with the recent Showtime deal with Amazon Unbox.

Now, news has been released that AOL Video will be adding a variety of films from Paramount Pictures to its download service, now the fifth movie production company that AOL has such a deal with. According to Daisy Whitney with TelevisionWeek, this will make a total of more than 300 movie titles offered by AOL Video ($9.99 to $19.99 range for the cost to download the films to own). Whitney lists the other film companies who have deals with AOL in her article.

Also, a fledgling network focused on "bluegrass and western lifestyle programming" called BlueHighways TV has now developed a distribution partnership with AOL Video, as the company makes deals with both corporate giants and also small niche marketers like this. For those of you who have been following our blog for some time, you'll know that I have a connection with bluegrass music, so I'm excited about this prospect. Currently, BlueHighways TV airs in video-on-demand and through the RFD-TV network.

AOL's video services has been developing a wide range of content for some time, including an all soaps channel, Spanish-language programming, and several other categories of content.