MSNBC.com has signed distribution deals with Road Runner, Sprint High Speed DSL and Excite@Home. Under the agreements, MSNBC.com will provide multimedia news content to subscribers to the three broadband services. Excerpts from NBC’s Today Show, Dateline NBC, NBC Nightly News and NBC Sports will be delivered as streaming video clips. Co-branded pages on the Road Runner site will link back to MSNBC.com, and MSNBC.com will provide Sprint with US news and sports news.
As with rumors of a Yahoo-Excite@Home merger (see separate story), the deals illustrate the way internet companies and traditional TV and cable networks are jockeying for position in the new broadband market. The world is moving quickly toward broadband, and these alliances give viewers the access and opportunity to view and use video news in a whole new way, explained NBC Cable president Tom Rogers. But the deals also cement existing close relationships between certain of the companies involved. Road Runner is a joint venture funded by Time Warner Inc, MediaOne Group, Compaq Computer Corp, Advance/Newhouse and Microsoft Corp, the last of which is also the co-owner, with NBC Corp, of MSNBC.com.
