CBS News Will Sell Archive Footage

 
By Stacy July 14, 2006





It seems that when it comes to video offered online that every company is trying to find its own angle to attract customers. CBS News is going to start offering news archives for sale but unlike NBC, which is going through iTunes, CBS News has made an interesting deal with Amazon.com and CustomFlix to offer classic news footage to users.

The deal covers some regular news footage, news specials, and "60 Minutes" footage. This deal differs in that customers choose the segments they want and the using CustomFlix's Create our Own DVD service can make a 90 minute DVD. The DVD will then be mailed to you through Amazon in 2 days. I don’t know if this is an international service or only within the US. In the past CBS has opened its archives to researches and academics but this is the first time that it will give access to the general public.

This service will cost $24.95. They will also offer pre created DVD’s of certain programs, it isn’t clear if these will be priced the same as the Custom DVD’s. Right now, the content is mainly from CBS "Evening News" and "60 Minutes" going back to 2000 but the service will eventually offer news archives dating back to the 1950’s. Some content will be excluded from the service, including a lot of news crew footage filmed on location, footage that has copyright issues, and any outtakes or bloopers.

This is interesting to me because it shows that companies are considering different alternatives for offering programs to customers. However, this service doesn’t seem extremely convenient and does appear aimed at keeping material rights firmly in check. But on a positive note this could be quite useful to schools or students. News coverage of events such as 9/11 or the first moon landing would have a lot of potential use in education or for people who just want to remember.

Related:
NBC to Sell News Specials on iTunes
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