The future of music and arts television has finally arrived! Now that high-speed broadband is widely available, and mainstream audiences are watching longer-form videos online, Classical TV brings a global audience the largest and best destination for performing arts videos online - with the most impressive content and the most prestigious content partners.

WHAT IS CLASSICAL TV?

Classical TV is a viewer-friendly, ever-changing destination at www.classicaltv.com, offering videos of the best classical performances from around the world.  The site combines frequent live and as-live special events - hot-ticket performances from the world's great opera houses, theaters, and concert halls - with an exclusive library of full-length videos of current and recent performing arts events, all available for streaming on your home computer. 

In addition, Classical TV offers a wealth of lively, informative, and decidedly unstuffy feature articles, topical playlists, insider columns, and cultural news that give fresh insights into the exciting world of classical performance. New features are added all the time. Classical TV's roster of writers and commentators includes some of the world's most respected cultural journalists.

WHAT KIND OF VIDEOS DOES THE CLASSICAL TV LIBRARY CONTAIN?

Classical TV's core library contains more than 1100 hours of exclusive performances of opera, ballet, concerts, jazz, drama, musicals, and documentaries - many from the world's most prestigious cultural venues, including New York's Metropolitan Opera House, London's Royal Opera House, the Paris Opera, Milan's La Scala, Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, St. Petersburg's Mariinsky (Kirov) Theater, and many others.

IS THE SITE FREE?

Most of Classical TV's videos are free, but some - our exciting special event performances - are pay-per-view. Each video is clearly marked as either free or available for a charge of $4.99 or $9.99. The higher-priced Premium shows include this season's must-see performances, broadcast live.

Both the $4.99 and $9.99 videos allow you to watch your chosen performance stream at your convenience during a 72-hour window.  That's a full three days - significantly longer than other classical streams online.  Watch an opera all-at-once, or watch an act at a time. Classical TV gives you the most convenient way to watch your chosen performances.

HOW IS THE CONTENT ARRANGED ON THE SITE?

At www.classical.com opera, ballet, drama, jazz, concerts, and documentaries each have their own "home pages", in which Classical TV's programmers and editors feature selected videos we think you'll be most interested in seeing.

Featured on our main home page is a selection of videos from all our genres, to give you ideas about some of our other fantastic content you may be interested in.  But you're always free to explore the site in your own way, and to mark one of the genre home pages as a Favorite to bring you straight to it. And you can always do a simple word search to see if Classical TV has a particular performance you're interested in.

WHY STREAMING RATHER THAN DOWNLOAD?

Audience research has shown that most viewers today would rather pay a lower price to have access to "streaming video", than pay more to download this kind of longer content permanently to their computer. (This is different from how people like to access individual music tracks, which they may want to transfer to an MP3 player.)

WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO USE THE CLASSICAL TV SITE?

There are several ways, really. You could search the library for different versions of your favorite classical works. Or you could use the recommendations in our specially created playlists to go beyond your current favorites and discover new ones!  And while we hope that you take advantage of the opportunity of watching the performances closely on screen, we know that some music lovers will also enjoy simply listening to Classical TV: enjoy our bounty of great music while at work or at home.

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE BEHIND CLASSICAL TV?

Classical TV has been created by an international team of people with expertise in the production and distribution of performing arts television programmes.

WHY IS NOW THE RIGHT TIME TO LAUNCH AND GROW CLASSICAL TV? 

Never before have so many consumers been using broadband streaming to view video online. Classical TV wants to make sure that your online video options include more than just television and movies - because audience members like you are demanding more.

TALK TO US!

At Classical TV we value your comments and suggestions.  As we grow, we want to stay responsive to your needs.  Please feel free to share your thoughts with us:

Video player and technical problems: info@classicaltv.com

Navigation round the site, and content issues: info@classicaltv.com

Questions about payments for Premium content: payments@classicaltv.com

Thank you!