ChannelFlip, a Web TV production company which makes shows for 18-35 men, is launching its beta service this week, with a fuller launch planned next week.
ChannelFlip shows will typically be about things aimed at a ‘male’ demographic. Each episode is about five minutes, good for ‘snack TV’ typical of the Web. Shows can also be exported via RSS/podcast to iPod or whatever mobile device you have.
ChannelFlip is going to start off with three shows: Unwired (gadgets), Play:Digital (games) and Discuss (films/movies).
This model is quite close to what UK blogger and media consultant Umair Haque first described in 2005 as turning TV into “microchunks“, and what VC Fred Wilson thinks is the future.
The team: Based in Oxford, the team includes Wil Harris(md), a regular panelist on the This Week in Tech podcast. Co-founder Justin Gayner is former journalist and director at QI Ltd, the company that produces the popular BBC show ‘QI’ starring Stephen Fry. Katharine Fletcher is a games geek and Ben Pritchett works on production.
Backers? This is unclear at this point, but I have it on authority that it’s backed by some former entrepreneur angel investors in the UK who cashed out of a tech company a little while back.