• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 11, 2005

In a potentially important development for the licensing of TV content on the Web, a major producer of public TV news programming has agreed to license its clips for use on an emerging online video search platform. MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, producers of the PBS show "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Tuesday announced the agreement with Critical Mention, a Web-based TV search and monitoring service.

While big broadband video portals such as Yahoo!, Google, and AOL are trying to carve up consumer video search marketplace, the relatively small New York-based startup Critical Mention has targeted the corporate enterprise space, providing Fortune 500 companies like Miller Brewing Co., Fed Ex, and Qualcomm with real-time TV monitoring and e-mail alerts, allowing their corporate reputation and marketing communications teams to know when they're mentioned, who's doing the mentioning, and in what context.

The company's Critical TV Enterprise solution "alerts clients to key words being mentioned, so they can view the context in which they're being talked about seconds after it airs on TV," explained Critical Mention CEO and founder Sean Morgan. Clients can log in to read the text of a broadcast, view coverage, and share clips immediately by sending a video e-mail to a colleague, workgroup, or, if necessary, the legal department. Clients can also post clips to a video gallery, order a copy on CD, or buy professionally written transcripts.

"The service gives us the ability to protect Qualcomm's image and manage its corporate identity," said Scott Anderson, senior analyst at Qualcomm. Anderson said he decided to switch to Critical Mention from rival company TV Eyes, because TV Eyes was relatively more expensive and didn't provide the same real-time video technology or e-mail alerts.

TV Eyes currently is helping Yahoo! introduce the ability for users to search closed-captioning text for programs from networks such as Bloomberg and the BBC. The service, expected in several weeks, also provides 60-second video clips. David Ives, CEO of TV Eyes, explained in a statement that broadcasters are paying to have their programs included in the search, and in some cases they and TV Eyes will split revenue from ads placed next to video clips.

Since AOL re-launched its free multimedia search service Singingfish in early December, major and minor players alike have made cautious inroads into the market. But no more so than Google's timorous entrance on Tuesday, when it launched Google Video--which doesn't even feature streaming video clips.

Google's careful approach is attributed to the immaturity of the market and unanswered questions about how to best turn video content into searchable text, and what business models will support video search.

While the major portals will most likely all resort to paid listings and ads, Critical Mention profits from subscription fees too hefty for the average consumer.

Critical Mention also shares revenue with content producers if and when their content is accessed.

Morgan said the company plans to deploy data centers in the top 200 U.S. markets by the end of this year, at which point it might even consider working with broadcasters to make clips searchable via all Internet search engines. But, said Morgan, he remains unconvinced that a viable consumer market for video search exists due to prohibitive costs of existing technology. "Oh, and forget about the licensing!" he added.