Taiwanese IPTV service provider Chunghwa Telecom has cut a deal with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to make YouTube a part of its digital television service.
According to the terms of the deal, which apparently was inked last month, Chunghwa gets access to YouTube's API and authorized content to make the online video service part of what it calls its multimedia-on-demand (MOD) offering as the carrier moves from a closed IP network to the open Internet.
"It will allow our customers to enjoy YouTube films on a much larger screen," Chang Yi-fong, vice president of Chunghwa's Northern Business Group, said during a press conference reported by Focus Taiwan.
It's not a bad deal for YouTube, either, if the carrier's statistics are accurate. Chunghwa said that MOD, which was launched in 2005, listed 1.16 million subscribers in August, averaging about $5.35 per user. The subscriber roles are expected to grow to 1.3 million by the end of the year.
YouTube, however, won't have access to all those people. The original MOD platform provides only content from Chunghwa Telecom. A next generation service that allows users to access content through either the carrier's closed network or the Internet--essential for OTT providers like YouTube--now has about 150,000 users. Chunghwa is moving to migrate all its subscribers to the new platform but needs time to upgrade existing set-top boxes, Chang said in the published report.
For more:
- see this story in Focus Taiwan
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