ErikHuggers
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The former head of Intel's internet TV project winds up at Vevo
Back in the day, there was a hope that OnCue, Intel's long-mooted internet TV service, would be the ultimate cord-cutter product, but a lack of support from both inside and outside the company killed it. It didn't take long after the project's assets were sold to Verizon for its charismatic leader, Erik Huggers, to skip out in search of pastures new. Now, Bloomberg is reporting that the executive is about to become the new head of music video network Vevo. According to sources, the music video outfit is banking on Huggers to turn the business into more than just a subset of YouTube where teens can find Taylor Swift videos.
Head of Intel's former internet TV project abandons ship
When Intel formally abandoned its IPTV project in a sale to Verizon, the team behind it transitioned as part of the deal. Now, only four months later, the man who's been in charge of the venture all along has washed his hands of it, too. Erik Huggers, who originally outed Intel's plan to create an IPTV service/hardware platform (later dubbed OnCue), moved to Verizon and continued on as project lead. There's no indication that Huggers left on bad terms, or that OnCue's progression is stagnating at Big Red.
Intel's TV service aims at Nielsen, big cable, might not get here
Reuters is reporting that Intel's mooted virtual television network has hit the buffers because it can't beat its cable rivals spending. The company is eyeing up the $100 million TV business with a set-top-box and over-the-top service that would offer smaller, cheaper bundles of channels rather than the hundreds that come with a basic cable subscription. It would leverage its facial recognition technology in the system both by offering precise ratings data to networks and by showing targeted adverts to whoever it can see is watching. The former will surely annoy Nielsen, a player with plenty of its own influence in the industry. Despite hiring a quartet of industry heavyweights to help negotiations, studios are refusing to offer discounts to a new and untried entrant, meaning we may not see the service arriving by that planned November launch date.
