Broadcast.com, Visual Data Plan Online Travel Video Channel

Pompano Beach, FL-based Broadcast.com and Dallas-based Visual Data Corp. formed a business services, advertising and distribution partnership to create a new online travel video channel.

Visual Data will provide travel-related video content for the channel and will sponsor the channel through the use of Broadcast.com’s multimedia advertising services.

The channel will be hosted on the Broadcast.com Web site, which claims more than one million viewers per day, and will be linked from the broadcast.com home page under “Travel.”

The new channel, which will offer information to travelers planning vacations and business trips, is scheduled to launch in June and will offer video tours and previews of hotels, resorts, timeshare properties, golf courses and attractions using Visual Data’s video libraries.

The channel will include content from HotelView, one of Visual Data’s most widely used video libraries. Visual Data also will produce new content for the channel including destinations, cruise ships and sports facilities through its video production network. Consumers will be able to take advantage of discount travel offers, tour packages and other travel services offered by Broadcast.com and Visual Data’s travel partners.

“In addition to the sponsorship fees we will receive from Visual Data, the travel channel will create additional revenue opportunities for both companies in the travel category,” said Mark Cuban, chairman and president of Broadcast.com. Financial specifics were not disclosed.

The Broadcast.com Web sites offer a selection of programming, including sports, talk and music radio, television, business events, full-length CDs, news, video, commentary and full-length audiobooks.

Visual Data produces, markets and distributes original video and audio content for the Internet and soon for interactive television. Visual Data’s video libraries cover a range of topics, including travel, business information, medicine and healthcare and entertainment. Partners include include PR Newswire; InterVu, which provides streaming media and Internet broadcast solutions; TravelWeb; Interval International; Rezsolutions; Physicians Online and Intellihealth.