Building on the enthusiasm for integrated, unified content delivery anywhere anytime, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) is developing its own triple play, offering up radio, TV and HD content to online, mobile and home based users across the country.
In a digital Canadian first, the CBC is offering original Canadian television programming in high definition (HD) on the iTunes Store, with episodes of the critically acclaimed shows Being Erica and The Tudors now available in High Definition on the iTunes store.
Meanwhile, the recently-released and internally developed CBC Radio iPhone app was downloaded more than 15,000 times in the first four days of its release, moving up the Top 100 iTunes chart to Number 3 overall while maintaining its #1 ranking in the News sub-category.
The app lets users listen to CBC Radio One, Radio 2 and Radio 3 on the go, using an iPhone or iPod Touch. All told, there are some 19 different live stream options and over 60 CBC program titles available on-demand at present, with plans for lots more.
"We have a road map, for sure. There's more to come," said the CBC's Jonathan Carrigan, who led the design and development of the radio app from his Vancouver base. Technical development is divided between staff in Vancouver and Toronto.
"We have a timeline of planned and desired future releases," he explained, avoiding specifics for the moment. "It is a living document, subject to change, but we have lots of plans for this year, in terms of further releases and added features."
Carrigan says he's not a programmer himself, but he can talk the talk, and interact with programmers, designers and "the suits" in the appropriate language of choice. Beyond application design and development, he's charged with business analysis and media consumption forecasting.
As such, he says the internal team clearly sees the trend towards media consumption anywhere, anytime, on any device as a key business driver. "It's like our own triple play," he says, noting the popularity of smartphones overall, but particularly the iPhone, its content and application distribution ecosystem, as well as its ease of use and ubiquity in the marketplace.
"Our tagline here is 'From code to consumer' he explains, noting the desire to achieve compatibility with a number of devices and various handsets. "But
clearly the iPhone has the numbers," he said, "both in terms of device adoption and media consumption. It's a space we had to be in, and one we will continue to grow."
The new app lets users listen to the CBC radio while browsing the newly iPhone-optimized CBC.ca website, with obvious content integration and media consumption opportunities for the public broadcaster.
Feeds from Radio One, Two and Three are available over 3G or Wi-Fi networks, and there are no restrictions on listening location. User tools like a 'Favourites' folder, sleep timer and more are built in.
Carrigan sees the appetite for alternate media choices as expanding and inevitable, based on the way people are demonstrating their preferences now for new ways to use media.
"Rights issues are still holding up some developments on the on-demand side of content offerings, but streaming is not so much an issue," he noted of the challenges and hurdles his team faces, financial and technical. "Getting all the CBC services out there in appropriate format is getting easier. The digital format conversion is one last hurdle to overcome, and we are moving to a more generic mp3 format from the Windows Media player environment previously implemented."
Carrigan sees the interface for media consumption as critical to its success, and he points out that the ability to track and link activity, to cross referenced content and provide the ability to connect easily with a social community of interest are key to any app, running on any device available in the community.
It's all about getting Canadian content to Canadians, he says, whether the format and whenever they are.
That's why CBC says it's the first to offer to Canadians the ability to purchase and download HD versions of home grown shows like Being Erica and The Tudors, with additional titles to be added going forward. HD titles are $2.99 per episode.
CBC already offers a slew of shows in standard-definition through iTunes Canada ($1.99 each), like The Rick Mercer Report, Dragon's Den, and Little Mosque on the Prairie; as well as the two aforementioned programs.
CBC already has a strong presence on iTunes, with lots of top-rated audio and video podcasts joining the new radio app.