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TV Programming Delivered Through the Net

Techstination feature for Monday, July 18, 2005

TV programming delivered through the Internet. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. In the not too distant future….your phone company and perhaps others will be selling what's called IPTV…a wide range of channels and on demand programming delivered through high speed Internet connections. A company called Akimbo…has a box on the market today….designed to download shows to a hard drive. Not quite IPTV…but says CEO Josh Goldman….

"The goal is to make this the world's largest video on demand library with videos from all over the world in every possible category of interest. Today we have thousands of shows …about 25 hundred shows are running right now on the service and it's growing with about 150 new shows being added every week. In terms of where those programs come from. They come from many of the largest cable providers in some cases. We have partners like A&E and the BBC, the History Channel, National Geographic."

The Akimbo box, which costs 199 dollars, plugs into your home network and your TV. The first three months of service are free….after that, it costs about 10 dollars a month or 170 dollars for a lifetime subscription. Beyond that….there are fees for premium programs and channels. What Akimbo delivers are channels designed for more narrow audiences…WineTV, Veg TV and a Yoga channel for instance. The idea is you pick the content that's of interest…and…

"Your Akimbo receiver is always downloading content you've said you're interested in. When you sit down to watch TV you're watching off of a hard drive, not the Internet. And that means the quality is going to be perfect because you're playing off of a hard drive."

Whether or not is worthwhile depends on whether you like the content offered. You can find more information at Akimbo.com. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.