Viacom goes with Joost, but can you afford to watch?

The announcement that a variety of TV shows and movies from Viacom will be available via the Joost peer-to-peer network sounds great - why subscribe to expensive cable channels if you can get the content for free - but it's not that simple.

The first stumbling block is that most people purchase bundles of channels from their pay TV provider. If the shows available on Joost are part of the basic package, you're no better off. Why load up your internet connection when the same content is available via cable or satellite?

One answer would be "on demand" but the widespread use of PVRs and even low-tech VCRs means people are already used to viewing asynchronously.

This may have an impact in countries with low rates of pay TV takeup, but unless Joost can get access to "killer content" (which usually means premium-quality sport such as English Premier League soccer), MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 won't do the job.

The next problem is that internet bandwidth isn't free. In markets like the US where "unlimited" plans are commonplace, ISPs have based their pricing on certain assumptions about what the average customer will do.

Joost uses up to 320M per hour, so if you watch 20 hours a week that's pushing 20G per month on top of your existing usage (unless you're substituting Joost for what are euphemistically known as "alternative distribution channels").

In Australia, that probably means an extra $A20 on your monthly internet bill. Yes, that is cheaper than basic pay TV service, but you have to pay for the basic package before you can get the channels you really want. In any case, MTV is currently part of the basic package here.

The late-90s idea that bandwidth would become free hasn't happened. It might be cheaper, but mobile phone carriers are still happy to charge us $A0.20 to carry a 160-character SMS.

ISPs seem to have moved away from swinging "excess data" charges to plans that impose speed caps after a download limit has been reached, but how much fun do you think it would be watching Joost content when the speed of your connection drops below the bandwidth required?

What Joost really needs is good content that you can't get elsewhere. At some stage, it might have the financial clout to be able to buy global rights to original content.

This would be very attractive for people outside the US who want to be able to watch shows such as 24 or Lost without having to wait for their local broadcaster so they don't suffer from 'spoilers' published on US-based web sites.

So it's a chicken and the egg situation. Joost can't afford the content it needs to become a really big player until it gets big. Perhaps a deep pocketed investor will be prepared to make a leap of faith?

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