IPTV News

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WarnerMedia to offer three-tiered streaming service

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WarnerMedia will release three different versions of its upcoming streaming TV service next year.

The SVOD service will include three levels of service: an entry-level movie-focused package; a premium service with original programming and blockbuster movies; and a third service that bundles content from the first two plus an extensive library of WarnerMedia and licensed content. The company is drop-feeding details about the new service.

WarnerMedia plans to launch its initial direct-to-consumer SVOD beta application in the fourth quarter of 2019. WarnerMedia is a division of AT&T that includes HBO, Turner and Warner Bros.

The new services will compete with other streaming services that are sold directly to customers, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and the forthcoming Disney+.

“If you’re a media company, you can no longer rely exclusively on wholesale distribution models,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in a news release. “You must develop a direct relationship with your
viewers.”

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SPI enhances Telekom Srbija cooperation

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SPI International has strengthened its partnership with the Serbian incumbent by adding VOD services to its platform.

The agreement between the two companies also includes Telekom Srbija’s daughter companies Mtel Bosnia & Herzegovina and Mtel Montenegro.

The VOD service consists of 150 localised movies, 200 thematic titles and engaging series, to which SPI will add at least 5% of new titles each month.

Commenting on the development, Murat Muratoglu, SPI’s head of distribution for MENA, Turkey, APAC, Russia and CIS, Baltics, Bulgaria and Ex-Yugo, said: “We are eager to continue to develop our cooperation with Telekom Serbia and all their connected telecommunications providers. It is important to continue to demonstrate the diversity in content that is provided only through our SPI channel portfolio.”

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Dutch anti-piracy association sued 75 sellers of illegal IPTV and VOD subs

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The Dutch anti-piracy association Brein said this year it sued 75 sellers of illegal IPTV and VOD subscriptions.

Brein offers all providers a civil settlement, but in the event of refusal, legal proceedings are initiated and full legal costs will also be claimed. The total amount of settlements, penalties and reimbursement of legal costs collected this year is around €300,000.

In total, since the GS Media and Brein / Film Player judgments by the Court of Justice of the EU, 275 illegal sellers have been detected by Brein. Of these, around 50 have stopped on their own initiative before Brein knocked on their door. “Stopping before you are caught is still a sensible idea, because the amounts to be paid can be quite high,” said Brein director Tim Kuik.

Meanwhile, last month at an electronics store in The Hague ten IPTV set-tops were confiscated by the police. The company sold them in combination with an IPTV subscription for €199 per year. After entering a code, the box could give unauthorised access to more than a thousand channels including sports.

The case has now been dealt with under civil law by means of a voluntary withdrawal of the boxes and a declaration of abstention with a penalty clause of €500 per box and subscription. This is the second time that the police in The Hague has seized illegal media boxes.

Recently Brein has also arranged with a small online seller of IPTV subscriptions who, besides access to encrypted channels, also gave video-on-demand access to films and series. The man settled for €1250 and signed a declaration of abstention with a penalty clause of €500 per subscription.

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Tele M?nchen’s Filmtastic to join waipu.tv

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German media group Tele M?nchen Gruppe will make its video-on-demand (VOD) service Filmtastic available to the customers of internet TV platform waipu.tv from December 1, 2018.

In the Perfect package, around 20 films from the Filmtastic portfolio will be available to subscribers commercial-free and in HD quality at no additional charge.

The portfolio includes the Iron Man trilogy, classics such as Basic Instinct and the Rambo franchise as well as productions by filmmakers such as David Lynch, Lars von Trier and Woody Allen. The titles are changed weekly.

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M7 Group and Panasonic team up for hybrid smart TV app

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M7 Group has reached an agreement with TV manufacturer Panasonic to integrate M7’s innovative hybrid smart TV app into the latest generation of Panasonic produced smart TVs.

The app will become available in the various markets M7 operates in (Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Germany and Austria).

The hybrid smart TV app developed by M7 allows users of Panasonic produced smart TVs, all equipped with built-in satellite tuners, access to both M7’s linear and non-linear TV content in HD and UHD quality through a central user interface and without the need of a set top box.

Furthermore, by connecting the smart TV to the internet, it offers numerous interactive features (e.g. live restart, pause TV, access to media libraries etc.) and digital services like cloud recording and electronic program guides.

From this autumn onwards, M7’s hybrid smart TV app will be available on all Panasonic OLED-TV series from 2019 as well as on the Ultra HD HDR LED series from GXW804 and above.

In addition to accessing entertainment and digital services via smart TV’s, M7 also provides access to these services via an app on mobile devices, enabling a seamless viewing experience when switching between the various screens.

“Panasonic is the world’s first TV manufacturer to integrate the new HbbTV Operator App Standard 2019 into its TV models. We are very pleased to have found another strong partner in the M7 Group to offer our Panasonic customers attractive added value,” says Dirk Schulze, Head of Product Marketing TV/Home AV at Panasonic Germany.

“Panasonic is a logical partner for the launch of our new M7 HbbTV Operator App due to its longstanding TV expertise, innovative tuner concept and strong market position,” said Andrei Noppe, Executive Vice President Operations, M7 Group.

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Stoneroos’ OTT Now! and EPGdata.tv have integrated XroadMedia’s content discovery

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Stoneroos, specialised in making interactive television accessible, and XroadMedia, a provider of content discovery and personalisation services, have integrated Ncanto, XroadMedia’s AI driven personalisation solution, into Stoneroos’ products OTT Now! and EPGdata.

Through this partnership, XroadMedia’s cloud-based Ncanto back-end solution is now fully integrated into Stoneroos’ product and service portfolio, where it complements Stoneroos’ advanced user experiences and data services for content and service providers with machine-learning metadata enrichment, personalisation and analytics services.

The OTT Now! multi-platform solution from Stoneroos will benefit from this partnership by providing customers with recommendations based on their viewing behaviour and interests across multiple profiles and platforms.

The EPGdata metadata and services from Stoneroos are now also extended with personalisation and recommendations delivered from Ncanto.

“We are very happy to offer XroadMedia’s content discovery and recommendations solution with our white-label OTT Now! product to deliver a next generation TV experience which our customers can offer their subscribers. In addition, we have also integrated XroadMedia’s solution into our rich metadata service EPGdata, which now also offers, next to our best-in-class pictures and data, a better user experience with personalised recommendations,” says Annelies Kaptein, CEO and Founder of Stoneroos.

Adolf Proidl, Co-Founder and CEO of XroadMedia, adds “We are excited to work with Stoneroos and to extend their innovative offering with our powerful personalisation and recommendation services. With the first customer launching in the next couple of months, customers of our combined solution will be able to deliver highly advanced and personalised experiences to their users, increasing customer satisfaction rates and reducing churn.”

To learn more about the joint solution please visit Stoneroos at their stand at IBC (hall 14, stand C23).

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Zattoo extends 1&1 IPTV by 4K TV stick via Android TV

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Zattoo presents its end-to-end white-label IPTV platform extended by Android TV live at IBC 2019 in Amsterdam and shows the new 1&1 TV stick for the first time at its booth G06 in hall 14.

Custom launcher technology from the Android TV Operator Tier will be used to expand the Zattoo IPTV platform. Thanks to this pre-configured control software, users like German internet service provider 1&1 can customise the selection of pre-installed Android applications and add their own apps.

Android TV apps available on the new 4K TV stick include the Google Search Assistant, YouTube and Google Play Movies. The stick complements the existing applications and devices for 1&1 Digital TV.

“We are very pleased that 1&1 is the first B2B customer with Android TV to be live on a 4K-enabled stick,” said Gernot Jaeger, Chief Officer B2B at Zattoo. “For 1&1 as well as for the end customers, this is a great addition and expansion: more apps, 4K and the already familiar functions such as live pause, catch-up, cloud recordings – it’s a great package. And we are looking forward to the upcoming innovations we are working on with 1&1.”

Based on Zattoo’s white-label IPTV platform, 1&1 has been the first German fixed-network provider to launch an entirely cloud-based TV service for a large number of devices and platforms in 2017. In addition to the new 1&1 TV stick with Android TV, 1&1 Digital TV can be accessed via the 1&1 TV box as well as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, iOS, Android, all popular browsers and Google Chromecast as well as Android TV-based Smart TVs.

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Russian OTT market takes off
Legal OTT services in Russia had combined revenues of R10.62 billion (€147.1 million) in the first half of this year.

According to Telecom Daily, this was already 64% of the R16.495 billion posted for the whole of 2018.

Furthermore, the market is set to continue growing at an annual rate of at least 30-35% and exceed R21.4 billion by the end of this year.

Paid OTT services continue to gain at the expense of those that use the advertising business model. In H1 the former accounted for almost 70% of revenues, while AVOD service claimed 31.2$, compared to 36.9% at the end of 2018.

Ivi was the market leader in revenue terms in the first half with a share of 26.4%, with second and third placed Okko and YouTube claiming 14.2% and 12.3% respectively.

Okko enjoyed the highest revenue growth in H1 (76%), while the smallest was posted by Tvigle (9%).

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Sorry, HTPC owners: YouTube is killing its web-based TV interface

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YouTube launched its 'Leanback' interface in 2010, originally designed as an automatic playback client for when you didn't want to search and navigate through videos yourself. It later turned into a full-fledged web application for control with a remote, intended for use with smart TVs and other similar devices. Unfortunately, the Leanback web app is about to join the Google Graveyard.

Visiting youtube.com/tv or youtube.com/leanback (which redirects to the former) now presents a message. "This version of YouTube will be going away soon. You'll still be able to view youtube.com, but you can get an optimized experience on a supported device."

It seems likely that this is an attempt by Google to limit streaming boxes, home theater PCs, and other TV-based devices from accessing YouTube unless there is some of licensing agreement between the manufacturer and Google. Since the leanback interface is simply a web app, it could be used on Raspberry Pis, home theater PCs, smart TVs with a web browser, and much more.

Leanback is what allowed Amazon's Fire TV products to still access YouTube after Google pulled its official app. Putting my tin-foil hat on for a moment, perhaps Google is doing this to prevent Amazon from retreating to unofficial TV apps if the companies' current partnership ever sours.

The original announcement video for YouTube Leanback from 2010

Whether or not that's true, the fact remains that Google is still going to be developing Leanback (or something very close to it), since it's what powers the YouTube app on smart TVs and Android TV. It's annoying that Google is artificially restricting the TV YouTube interface to only 'supported devices,' but at least we'll always have the Kodi add-on.

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Seinfeld is heading to Netflix in 2021
Friends might be leaving Netflix next year, but the streaming service just landed another giant beloved series: Seinfeld.

Seinfeld will be available to stream on Netflix beginning in 2021, the company announced today. It will also be available to stream in 4K. That’s when the show’s contract with Hulu (now owned by Disney) comes to an end. It’s unclear how much Netflix paid for the show, but it was rumored to be in the same wheelhouse as WarnerMedia’s Friends deal, which was reported at $425 million.

“Seinfeld is a one-of-a-kind, iconic, culture-defining show,” Sony Pictures Television chairman Mike Hopkins told the Los Angeles Times. “Now, 30 years after its premiere, ‘Seinfeld’ remains center stage. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Netflix to bring this beloved series to current fans and new audiences around the globe.”

Although Seinfeld is a WarnerMedia-owned property (it’s similar to Friends), Sony Pictures Television ended up with the rights to the show. Rumors suggested that Netflix was bidding on the series alongside WarnerMedia (HBO Max), Comcast (an untitled NBCUniversal streaming service), and Hulu. The original deal for Seinfeld in 2015 cost Hulu $160 million.
It’s an important move for Netflix, which lost two of its biggest licensed series: both Friends and The Office will return to their original homes and stream exclusively on HBO Max and NBCUniversal’s streaming service, respectively. Netflix was reportedly aggressively pursuing Seinfeld as bidding occurred, according to the Times.

Seinfeld co-owners, including WarnerMedia, CBS, Jerry Seinfeld, and series co-creator Larry David will share in the revenue from the Netflix deal, according to the Times. Sony will also receive a “significant percentage as the show’s distributor,” the Times reports. Jerry Seinfeld already has an ongoing relationship with Netflix, with his show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and a special with the streaming service.

With Seinfeld, The Office, and Friends all set for the next few years on different streaming services, there are a few big-time network shows left to be picked up by streamers. Both The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men are expected to go to WarnerMedia’s HBO Max for a rumored deal of more than $1.5 billion.