Video publishing company thePlatform, which provides back-end video management for Comcast's Xfinity TV and the OnDemand Online TV Everywhere initiative for Rogers Communications in Canada, will do the same for New Zealand's Sky Television, the company said.
Sky TV, New Zealand's largest pay-TV operator, is offering subscribers access to its new iSky online TV service, which allows them to watch programs and movies on their computers. iSky content is based on subscribers' existing TV packages and features live streaming channels including: Sky News New Zealand, CNN and Sky Sports channels. On-demand content is also available including "catch-up" TV episodes and movies. In addition to these free online services to existing Sky subscribers, the iSky portal offers thousands of movie titles and TV episodes for rent on a pay-per-view basis.
"Our primary focus for the iSky service is to provide a seamless entertainment experience for our subscribers," said John Fellet, CEO of Sky Television. "thePlatform's proven expertise in supporting large 'TV Everywhere' deployments in North America made them the right choice to deliver the scale required to support our back-end video management."
Sky is using thePlatform's cloud-based mpx video management system which it rolled out in February and revamped in August, as the central hub for its content partners for publishing video to the iSky website. The TV Everywhere solution is designed to enhance its customers' ability to enforce video business policies, monetization models, and content restrictions, authorizing, for example, online playback on individual videos based on a user's paid TV subscription package.
Sky customers with broadband from Vodafone, Orcon, Slingshot, Farmside, Xnet, Woosh, Snap and WIZwireless will have unmetered access to iSKY programming.
thePlatform, which is a Comcast subsidiary, has been at the leading edge of the TV Everywhere initiative, providing support for customers including Cablevision, Canwest, CBC, Comcast, Corus Entertainment, Cox Communications, ExerciseTV, HIT Entertainment, NBC Local Media, Outdoor Channel, PBS, PBS KIDS Sprout, Rogers, Sony BMG, Starz Play, Time Warner Cable, Travel Channel Media, truTV and numerous others.
For more:
- see this release
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