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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Vimeo Pacts with Web Publishers to Sell VOD Titles on Their Sites


Internet-video site inks deal with publishers CBS Interactive, The Atlantic and TEN: The Enthusiast Network



Call it “Vimeo everywhere”: The Internet-video company has opened up its paid video-on-demand catalog of 16,000 titles to let third-party web publishers sell or rent them directly on their sites.
Vimeo has inked pacts with three online publishers — CBS Interactive, The Atlantic and TEN: The Enthusist Network — for the Vimeo On Demand Publisher Network.
Under the program, publishers can embed videos into article pages or their own VOD storefronts and let users buy them from the syndicated player. That’s a capability, Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor pointed out, that is not available with Apple’s iTunes and Amazon Video.
Partners will earn a small cut of the revenue from Vimeo on every transaction. Trainor declined to reveal the percentage of the revenue share but said it will come off the top of the total purchase price; after that, Vimeo’s standard split (under which creators receive 90% of the revenue) will apply.
“By selling VOD content, the Publisher Network provides additional revenue streams — without advertising — not only for partners, but also for our creators exposed to a wider audience via premium publishers,” Trainor said. “This supercharges the distribution of the content on Vimeo to third-party publishers… It opens up any web page on the Internet to purchase this content.”
CBS Interactive plans to embed Vimeo VOD content in TVGuide.com, TV.com and Metacritic across the sites’ film and TV databases. For example, if a user searches for a title on TVGuide.com, the search results will include an embedded version of the title if it’s available on VOD. “Indexing Vimeo’s VOD offering brings our users access to even more ways to easily discover and watch shows and movies,” said Christy Tanner, CBS Interactive’s senior VP and g.m. of media.
The Atlantic has established a dedicated video page Vimeo selections, populated with documentaries and indie films ranging across technology, lifestyle and entertainment. TEN: The Enthusiast Network will launch custom Vimeo On Demand storefronts for its action and adventure sport media brands, including TransWorld Motocross, TransWorld Skateboarding, TransWorld Snowboarding, Surfer, Powder and GrindTV.
Vimeo’s publishing partners can make their own selections from the 16,000 titles (encompassing more than 50,000 individual videos) or they can opt to have Vimeo curate the content selection on their behalf.
Under the program, publishers will have access to Vimeo’s exclusive titles each month. For example, earlier this month Spike Lee released his horror film “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” exclusively on Vimeo On Demand one month before theatrical debut.
New York-based Vimeo, a subsidiary of IAC, has not released revenue figures for Vimeo On Demand or number of transactions since launching the service in 2013.

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