TED Eyes TV

NEW YORK: TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), the non-profit organization that runs the acclaimed TED Conferences to showcase the world’s leading thinkers, has opened up its vault of TEDTalks, featuring 18-minute speeches from, among others, former U.S. VP Al Gore and J.J. Abrams, to broadcasters worldwide.

As part of the TED Open TV Project, broadcasters can air the TEDTalks—available for streaming on the TED website—for free, provided their air the spots unedited, uninterrupted and commercial-free. Broadcasters can also produce original content to air around the TEDTalks. Public and commercial broadcasters are eligible to take the content. TED says on its website that the broadcaster "must share the goal of spreading ideas and expanding the availability of intelligent content in the media."

"Since we first launched TEDTalks, our goal has been to distribute on all available video platforms; anywhere people watch video, we want them to watch TEDTalks," said June Cohen, executive producer of media for TED. "And the fact is, people everywhere still watch an awful lot of TV. "In particular, TV is a very effective way to reach the developing world, where low internet penetration and slow connections make online video impractical. But most important, the TED Open TV Project continues TED’s guiding philosophy of radical openness."
 
The European Broadcasting Union, which has signed on to the initiative for its 75 member broadcasters. Other broadcasters that have already signed up include DR in Denmark; TeleMedellin, a city public station in Colombia; the Kiss TV cable channel in Africa; GEO TV in Pakistan; SIC Radical in Portugal, SVT in Sweden; and Management TV in Latin America, among others.