ITV

Tag: LOVEFiLM

  • Pay-TV operators in Europe and Asia bet big on OTT

    Pay-TV operators in Europe and Asia bet big on OTT

    MUMBAI: Low ARPUs, growing competitive threats, and rival multi-screen services are driving many pay-TV providers in Europe and Asia to explore new business strategies in video services, according to international research firm Parks Associates.

    TV Everywhere: Growth, Solutions, and Strategies – Europe and Asia/Pacific, a new report from Parks Associates, indicates multi-screen services now reach 66 per cent of pay-TV subscribers in Western Europe, 21 per cent in Eastern Europe, and 9 per cent in Asia, compared to 90 per cent in North America.

    Many pay-TV providers are now leveraging their multi-screen services to offer over-the-top (OTT) services to non-pay-TV subscribers. The UK satellite provider Sky is offering Sky Go, which features live TV and on-demand content, to non-Sky TV customers via PCs, smartphones, and tablets, with monthly subscriptions at ?15-40.

    Italian pay-TV providers Telecom Italia, Mediaset, and FastWEB, Romanian incumbent Romtelecom, UAE-based Etisalat, and South Korean cable operator CJ Hellovision have all launched video services that are available to anyone with a broadband connection.
    Operators with niche content, such as Telecom Serbia, have also launched new, local-language services to reach segments of consumers outside their home market.

    In India, Zeel made its foray into OTT with Ditto TV which will also be available in UK, UAE, New Zealand and Australia. The OTT platform currently offers 35 channels across genres.

    "Now that Netflix has entered Europe and large players have acquired OTT services such as Lovefilm and Acetrax, the video services market will be increasingly competitive, forcing pay-TV providers to test new services and business models," said Parks Associates Director-Research Brett Sappington.

    "Operators in Europe and Asia have dramatically increased their multiscreen offerings, and some are expanding into pure-play OTT services, with offerings available outside their network footprint."

    These efforts will increase as new OTT offerings throughout Europe, including Netflix and HBO, threaten operators‘ premium TV revenues. Parks Associates‘ report examines the development of TV Everywhere/multiscreen services in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Asia/Pacific region.

  • FremantleMedia to make shows available for net download

    FremantleMedia to make shows available for net download

    MUMBAI: Format creator and distributor FremantleMedia and Arts Alliance Media have signed a deal for users to download episodes to their PCs and certain portable devices and view them either on a rental basis or keep them on their hard drives to watch whenever they want.

    Fremantlemedia has granted rights to Arts Alliance Media-which provides digital film distribution services in Europe – to make up to 200 hours of classic comedy available to UK broadband internet users. Programming will be sourced from the FremantleMedia and talkbackThames catalogues and will include hit programmes such as Men Behaving Badly, Goodnight Sweetheart and Tommy Cooper.

    The content will be available later this year via a dedicated website as well as via Arts Alliance Media’s download partners which currently includes download and DVD rental site, Lovefilm and AOL, which has over 2.2 million members in the UK, of which more than 1.3 million are broadband members. Additional partners for download distribution will be announced over the coming months.

    FremantleMedia Enterprises CEO David Ellender, says, “This deal represents a central part of our new media strategy which involves us engaging with the consumer across a number of new platforms that are being opened up at present. Arts Alliance Media is the leading download company for the studios and has a reputation and track record second to none in this field. We are very excited about establishing a relationship with them as they move into the TV sector.”

    Arts Alliance Media president Mark Livingstone, said, “We are pleased to be the first to partner with FremantleMedia in a deal which further establishes Arts Alliance Media’s reputation as the premier content provider for download services. FremantleMedia’s content of classic TV comedy adds to our extensive library of feature titles which we look forward to rolling out to our existing and future partners.”