• by Shankar Gupta , December 15, 2005

Broadband video firm Roo Media, based in New York, announced Wednesday a partnership with News.com.au, the Australian wing of Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, to provide video content and their proprietary player to the news site.

As part of a 90-day paid trial, Roo will place its video player on the News.com.au site, and use it to serve video content from Roo licensees, including Reuters and the Associated Press. News Corp. also will use Roo's video player to serve videos from the Australian News Corp. company Sky News. The content will be monetized via pre-roll video ads, sold by News Corp's ad sales team.

Greg Verdino, Roo's vice president for sales and marketing, said the company hopes to leverage the trial period with News.com.au into a standard 24-month agreement. Ideally, he said, he hopes to extend the deal to News Corp's U.S. Web properties. "We see this as a first step. News.co.au is not an insignificant property within the NewsCorp portfolio," he said. "But we're looking at this as a way to prove the concept in effect, and use that to springboard into other relationships with other News Corp properties, including those in the U.S."