How Showtime Created a Video Content Destination

For Showtime, online video serves not only to promote the network's cable channel programming, but also to create a new revenue stream of its own through advertising. As it establishes its website as a leading video content destination, Showtime's partnership with Brightcove helps to provide online audiences with the kind of premium experience its TV viewers have come to expect. Explains Chris Lucas, Vice President and Executive Producer of Digital Media, "By working with Brightcove, we can create new experiences for the way people consume and interact with video."

As a premium network, Showtime's viewers expect an experience a cut above the norm. At the same time, building and maintaining its own state-of-the-art video player is beyond the company's core strength, and an inefficient use of its resources. "Showtime is a content company, not a technology company," says Lucas. "The Brightcove Platform allows us to focus on what we do best."

Showtime now uses the Brightcove Platform to manage the large catalog of video content it delivers to viewers through the Sho.com website. Viewers enjoy near-HD quality through one of the largest players on the Web, and can easily share and socialize their favorite content. Brightcove also makes it simple for Showtime to provide individual Players to syndication partners such as cable affiliates and consumer portals, without having to build custom applications for each partner.

Brightcove has had a dramatic impact both internally where it has helped Showtime free up three full-time positions and among audiences, with page views for video content more than doubling in the first two months. The network can now more easily leverage and monetize the full depth of its archive while continuing to enhance its offerings. Says Lucas, "Our relationship with Brightcove is very much a partnership, and we continue to work together on next-generation online video experiences."