UStream has evolved
quickly into a familiar brand to video junkies and jockeys looking for the one of the quickest, cheapest, easiest ways to get their video online in real-time. Just about anyone can turn a cam onto an
event and broadcast it live, and for free, through the service. Until now this has been a hoot and a great resource for us all, but someone has to make some serious money off of all this bandwidth and
streaming. The company launched a business-oriented platform called Watershed to service those who want to pay for advanced services and even insert their own ads. Now UStream intends to get some
revenue the old fashioned way -- direct from consumers.
The company announced the first in a planned series of ongoing pay-per-view program partnerships to launch later this month. Starting
January 31, the "Adam Corrolla Show" will stream live the radio antics of the comedian. Users will subscribe to video access for $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Corrolla's show, which is popular as an
audio podcast and featured often in iTunes, will get a visual element and live interactivity via UStream. Users will be able to chat with the show.
If "Man Show" veteran Corrolla's humor is
too lowbrow, UStream is aiming higher (or at least for the middle) in a partnership with continuing edutainment brand The Learning Annex. The company is famous for its celebrity instructors like
Deepak Chopra, Richard Branson, Harrison Ford and Sarah Jessica Parker. The celebrity hook may make for a decent draw, as well as the special pricing. While Corrolla is demanding a fairly high fee and
commitment that likely is aimed at loyalists, Learning Annex is going for volume. The "classes" will go for as low as 99-cents each.
UStream says that the online payments will be handled via
PayPal, and previously purchased items will remain accessible to the viewer at the brands' dedicated USTream sites. UStream has executed a PPV project in the past. A year ago it hosted and sold live
access to comedian Dane Cook shows.
Does live and on-demand pay-per-view have a chance on a platform that has eschewed direct-from-consumer models in the past? Not likely as a general thing,
we think. Fee-based content tends to do better when there is an entire ecosystem of others working to normalize the model for consumers. Mobile media continues to succeed as a pay model despite the
proliferation of free content. Its ecology started as a paid system and a wealth of fee-based content is there to reinforce the sense of value others are willing to pay for, too. It is tied directly
to a billing system and mobile media works within a platform where other elements are paid for discretely like SMS and data plans. Plopping a new paid model into a sea of free feels discordant.
But UStream is smart to partner first with celebrity rather than simple "premium content." Stardom sells. I am likely to plop down a couple of bucks just to see a movie star I like work in a
different context. Deepak Choprah? Maybe not so much. Is there any obtuse platitude he can serve up in a Learning Annex class we haven't heard on too many PBS specials?