paidContent:UK reports that Joost is to add “live television” to its p2p-based Internet TV service. Content strategy and acquisition EVP, Yvette Alberdingkthijm, says that Joost will begin testing live transmissions in the first quarter of 2008, and that the company is currently “talking to everybody who has sports rights.” Alberdingkthijm acknowledges that securing sports rights can be extremely expensive but stressed that Joost is capable of doing live “really, really well.”

Were Joost to add a full lineup of “live” television channels, replicating the live streams found on traditional terrestrial, cable and satellite stations, then the service would compete even more directly with Zattoo and LiveStation, two Internet TV services which have, until now, distinguished themselves from other p2p-offerings by focusing on live rather than on-demand content.

In my early review of LiveStation, I concluded:

In the end, as ever, content will be king. And while we don’t yet know how many different Internet TV applications a user will welcome onto their desktop, it’s likely there’s room for at least one live and one on-demand offering.

If Joost does roll out live programing, it maybe that users only need one Internet TV application after all.