Comcast Planning Online Video Platform, 'Watchable'

Now that Comcast has made a major investment in Vox Media, and is likely about to announce a similar deal with Buzzfeed, you would think that it would be done for a little while on the Web. Not so. According to multiple sources, Comcast is courting both Vox Media and Buzzfeed, as well as a host of other Websites and digital publishers, for a brand-new video platform called "Watchable."

Don't get too wedded to the name just yet, though; as Business Insider reports, it's possible that Comcast might opt for another name entirely by the time the service goes live in a few weeks. It was previously thinking of calling the service Gazeebo (yuck), and Variety reports that it's known as Project Helen internally.

Though Comcast is also still firming up its partners for said service, the various digital publishers that Comcast is rumored to be working with thus far—including Vox, Buzzfeed, The Onion, Refinery29, Vice, and NBC Sports, to name a few—are all allegedly being asked to sign a multi-year agreement with the cable giant. Said agreement would give Comcast's new video platform a ton of "unlicensed, original video content," as Business Insider describes, which would be viewable by any Comcast user with an Xfinity X1 set-top box.

At some future point, Comcast would also open up its streaming service for viewing via iOS or Android devices. And said partners could also presumably post their content wherever they want, too, as Business Insider notes that the deals they're working out with Comcast are non-exclusive.

As for money, Comcast will just be giving its partners advertising revenues. It won't be paying any extra to license any kind of content for its service, which will also allow Comcast to acquire content for even cheaper than it does currently.
Digital publishers, in turn, will be able to sign on board with a service that helps push them a bit out of the online-only world. Watchable (or whatever it will be called) could find a home in tens of millions of households once Comcast finishes switching all of its subscribers' existing set-top boxes.

That's great for online-only publishers who are looking to court an audience that might not really head to the Web for their main media. And if they can succeed in growing their brands among this new base, they might be able to pull in much more advertising revenue than they could previously (as online-only publishers).