Wildwave wins first customers for its new Asian music channel

Irish media company Wildwave has announced its first distribution customers for a new multiplatform music service, i-amtv.

Dublin-based Wildwave, which co-hosts the annual Darklight mobile video festival and whose expertise to date has been in delivering video content to mobile phones, said yesterday that both Sony and internet TV service Joost would carry its new Asian music channel.

The company made the announcement at the 3G-Wimax conference in Shanghai, a premier regional conference for the telecommunications industry.

Wildwave is also in advanced negotiations with a major North American telecommunications company.

I-amtv is the first truly multiplatform content service from an Irish company. The company claims it is the first multiplatform content service anywhere.

To date some media companies have experimented with the internet as a medium for delivering video and have turned to services such as Apple's iTunes. I-amtv uses all available distribution media other than broadcasting.

Along with Malaysian partner Music Kampany , i-amtv will distribute independent Asian music videos via video-on-demand, mobile phones, MP3, personal media players, games consoles and internet television, making Wildwave one of the first of a new generation of audio-visual content distributors bypassing the television industry in favour of multiple outlets.

"We were advised that to make the service work we would need to launch in North America," says Wildwave chief executive Stephen McCormack, "and that will give the service credibility in the core Asian markets. But this content will be available everywhere, for example to the Chinese community in Ireland and the Chinese community in China".

I-amtv will distribute content from acts based in Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

The Irish media industry has seen less disruption from internet and mobile media than elsewhere in Europe.

Ireland, with Channel 6, is one of the few developed media markets where an entirely new traditional terrestrial television station has launched in the past five years.

Nor has the wave of user-generated content now integrated into the programming of major channels elsewhere, such as the BBC's Your News, made much of an impression on Irish broadcasting.

Wildwave partner Joost is the internet TV service set up by the founders of Skype, the internet telephony service now owned by eBay. Wildwave supplied video content to Joost's beta trials.

Sony Connect, where i-amtv will debut, is similar to Apple's iTunes. Sony plans to migrate Connect services to its PSP portable entertainment console later this year. Deals are also anticipated with the US internet services Telus and Verizon, as well as Bell Canada.

The impact of i-amtv may well be felt in the independent media production sector in Ireland, which to date has been dependent on State broadcaster RTÉ as its primary market. Wildwave, with more channels planned, will begin commissioning content from Irish media companies from the summer onwards.