This press release came from Accedo Broadband, a participant at next week's CONNECTIONS Europe Summit in Amsterdam. Viasat has become the latest pay-TV operator to extend premium content such as VoD to the connected TV environment.
From Broadband TV News, Viasat OnDemand is to appear on connected TVs manufactured by LG Electronics for the Nordic region. The MTG-owned pay-TV provider has signed an agreement with LG that will see Viasat content made available on all LG sets enabled with the ‘NetCast’ functionality.
Hans-Holger Albrecht, President and CEO of MTG, said the link with LG showed Viasat to be platform agnostic. “The cooperation with LG is a key step in broadening the availability of our Viasat OnDemand service, which is already accessible through Viasat’s OnDemand set-top box, our online portal, on mobile phones and now also directly via broadband-enabled TV sets.”
The application was developed for Viasat by Stockholm-based Accedo Broadband.
The over-the-top solution is available to any Viasat OnDemand with a broadband connection. Included are episodes of hit TV series as broadcast by TV3, TV6 and TV8 in Sweden, TV3 and Viasat4 in Norway and TV3 and TV3+ in Denmark, as well as access to 200 feature films at any given time.
I have been trying to keep up with the tally of managed service operators working with the connected TV community. So far (and I'm sure that this list is not comprehensive), I have:
* Orange (France) and LG Electronics: Content includes Orange Sport Info, 24/24 Actu (news service) to Liveradio and other content such as TV programs, videos, music and practical information.
* TeliaSonera and Philips: TeliaSonera International Carrier has announced that its Media Distribution Service (MDS) was chosen by Philips for its technology platform for premium VoD.
* DISH Network and Google TV: Offers a $179 Google TV package for subscribers to provide the Logitech Revue smart TV set-top box adapter.
* TiVo and Cox: The two companies will offer TiVo Premiere with integrated Cox On DEMAND service to Cox subscribers. Customers will need a CableCARD for access to Cox services.
* TiVo and Virgin Media: Virgin Media distribute the HD/3D set-top box with 1 TB of storage and an internal modem to provide for both HD video and other online video.
