Freesat Gets iPlayer And Internet TV Catchup TV Services
Viewers of UK free to air service Freesat will soon be able to consider up on any missed live internet tv shows with the engross of iactor and ITV catchtup tv service.
The iPlayer will be available on 7th December and ITV’s player will exist early next year. Freesat is the very first free to air service to have the ITV Player in its arsenal, geting viewers to watch tv-on-demand content straight from the TV try alternatively of via a PC. vestal Media and BT imaginativeness already have ITV Player but they are subscription based services.
Freesat said it was aiming to launch an open beta version of the iPlayer, accessible to around 230,000 Freesat households with compatible set-top boxes, by Christmas.
Watch Dr Who on iPlayer
The Freesat iPlayer offering will provide 450 hours of BBC on-demand programming per week, including Top Gear, EastEnders, Life, Gavin and Stacey, and Christmas excess The Gruffalo, for viewers to watch for up to VII days by and by the programmes have aired on TV. A full public launch is aforethought(ip) for early 2010.
Freesat also said today that it had added more than 200,000 new households in the three months to the end of September, to take its total customer base to 750,000. The growth rate between the second and third quarters of 2009 was 42%, Freesat said.
“Almost 30% of all iPlayer viewing is on Virgin Media’s computer program, which means it could be fabulously popular for us,” Scott added.
She said that 80% of all Freesat recipient equipment sold did not have personal video-recorder capability, signification that catch up TV services would be a boon for viewers. “These deals give the service another string to Freesat’s bow,” she said.
Virgin Media is aiming to cash in on the 66 million views of on-demand content each month via its on-demand service.
The company is also in discussions with ITV around introducing advertising around its ITV Player service. Channel 4 runs ads around the 4oD programming on the Virgin Media service, but these are “sewed in” to the shows and cannot be dynamically changed.
He revealed at a CNBC event that Hulu will be gone in two years, as viewers start using improved newer technology. “When you specify of the change, look at Hulu and the dialogue and debate, and you say, OK this is in for the next eight to 12 months and in two years it won’t affair because the reality will have moved on,” he said.
To back up his claims that technology is will acquire fast, he mentioned the “Sixth Sense” project which is a mini projector unit encased in a cell or Mobile River phone that will allow viewers to watch video and internet tv on any surface and at any size anyplace.
So is this guy deluded? We have to assume not. I think that Seidenberg’s prediction could be set off correct simply due to the fact that Hulu could be losing its exclusivity over online distribution for NBC, Fox and ABC. Then of course there is the danger that Hulu will go down the pay to view itinerant, again causing a massive loss of users.