Newsplayer Limited (a company dissolved in May 2012) was a

streaming video Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

of historical news footage. The service provided online access to newsreel video clips and television news reports spanning the last 100 years. The online

digital archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

featured over 14,000 video clips of licensed material from the libraries of

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

Pathe News Pathe or Pathé may refer to: * Pathé, a French company established in 1896 * Pathé Exchange, U.S. division of the French film company that was spun off into an independent entity * Pathé News, a French and British distributor of cinema newsr ...

and

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

Background

Newsplayer allowed users to browse and retrieve

video clips Video clips refer to mostly short videos, most of the time called memes, which are short videos of silly jokes and funny clips, most of the time coming from movies or any entertainment videos such as YouTube. The term is also used more loosely to ...

keyword Keyword may refer to: Computing * Keyword (Internet search), a word or phrase typically used by bloggers or online content creator to rank a web page on a particular topic * Index term, a term used as a keyword to documents in an information syste ...

, topic or year. The Newsplayer library included news footage of key moments in history from the 20th Century from 1896 to the early 2000s. Videos were streamed on demand via

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

progressive download.

Company history

First launched in October 1999. Newsplayer broadcast

Paramount News Paramount News is the name on the newsreels produced by Paramount Pictures from 1927 to 1957. History The Paramount newsreel operation began in 1927 with Emanuel Cohen as an editor. It typically distributed two issues per week to theaters across t ...

, Pathe News, ITN and Reuters video archive to users on a subscription-based model. Original board members of the Newsplayer group included co-founders

Paul Duffen Paul Jeremy Duffen (born 31 July 1958 in Woodford Green, Essex, England) is a British businessman and entrepreneur, whose public profile was most prominent as Chairman of the football club Hull City A.F.C. between 2007 and 2010. Duffen became Cha ...

(the ex

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of Hull City

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

club) Barry Llewellyn and Steven Smith. Original directors also included

David Frost Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer. He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme ' ...

who granted Newsplayer access to his onscreen interview archive spanning four decades. By 2003, Newsplayer faced a funding crisis. In 2008 Newsplayer was acquired by

Niall Donnelly Niall Donnelly is an Irish entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, California. He is known for Technology and Entertainment companies in Los Angeles and London has built a name for himself both sides of the Atlantic as a major force in the entertain ...

and Brendan Morrissey. On December 8, 2008, Newsplayer beta was re-launched as a free to view video streaming website. The company announced on their website that a fully featured version of Newsplayer was planned for January 2009. The company expanded its video archive by forming alliances with media and technology partners, alongside its license with

and

Closure

The last date that the Internet Archive captured a screenshot of the Newsplayer site was March 17, 2013. Newsplayer is now offline. Newsplayer Limited was dissolved on May 22, 2012.

References

{{reflist 1999 establishments in British Overseas Territories 2012 disestablishments Defunct companies of Guernsey 20th-century establishments in Guernsey 21st-century disestablishments in Guernsey Subscription video streaming services