Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) hasn’t had much luck with its Internet TV service, Yahoo Connected TV. Ever since the software became available in a select number of high-definition televisions in 2009, audiences have been ignoring it in favor of other streaming on demand options, particularly Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX).
It hasn’t been Yahoo’s fault entirely. The public hasn’t shown strong interest in Internet television services from companies like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) either.
Part of the problem is that TV content providers, worried that the rise of connected television services will further diminish advertising revenue from traditional broadcast, cable, and satellite television, have been reticent to throw their full support behind any Internet television service.
It’s a boon for Yahoo then that Disney (NYSE:DIS) is looking to support Yahoo Internet TV with a wealth of content.
Citing people familiar with the matter, a Wall Street Journal report Monday said Disney is developing Yahoo Connected TV widgets — channels within the software that allow users to watch streaming content from specific TV networks — of their most popular TV outlets. These include sports network ESPN, the company’s family programming outlet Disney Channel, and ABC. These new widgets will be among the first on Yahoo’s service to offer free television content to viewers, and will give Yahoo a competitive edge against other connected TV software.
The new Disney content is a significant blow against Google TV, which saw two products released last fall, the Logitech (NASDAQ:LOGI) Revue set top box and Sony’s (NYSE:SNE) Internet TV HDTV sets. The software’s major selling point, the ability to search both regular television programming and video on the Internet all on the same living room technology, was panned by many critics as being inconsistent and unwieldy to use.
More damning, however, was that every major television network, including Disney’s ABC, General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NYSE:NWS) Fox, and CBS (NYSE:CBS), blocked Google TV software from accessing the streaming television content available on their mutual websites.
The new agreement between Disney and Yahoo may represent a broader thawing of corporate mistrust of Internet television. The Journal report went on to say that News Corp. is in talks with Samsung, also a Yahoo Connected TV partner, to bring the company’s television programming and catalog of 20th Century Fox movies to Samsung’s tablet PCs like the Galaxy Tab and Internet-connected televisions.
The new Disney-owned widgets on Yahoo Connected TV won’t offer as much content as the company’s proper TV channels, though. The ESPN widget, for example, will include clips of shows and sports stats, similar to the version of ESPN 3 the company recently released for Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox 360. The Disney Channel widget also will provide only limited content options, including movie trailers and clips from shows. While it hasn’t been ruled out, the Journal‘s sources say Disney hasn’t confirmed that full episodes of ABC programming would be available through the ABC widget.
This exemplifies the scattered state of most companies’ Internet television strategies. ABC is blocked on Google TV, but it will offer a widget with limited content on Yahoo Connected TV. Meanwhile, the Disney, News Corp., and GE joint venture Hulu provides access to full episodes of a wealth of Disney-owned content, with free options updated on a weekly basis. Disney’s new deal with Yahoo shows that company’s are improving their Internet TV efforts, but connected television still isn’t ready for primetime.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
