Disney+ has launched today in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland. The service will launch in France on April 7th. In light of concerns regarding the current ability of certain broadband infrastructure to handle the anticipated consumer demand for Disney+, the service will now feature a lower overall bandwidth utilisation by at least 25%.
With over 500 films, 26 exclusive original movies and series and thousands of television episodes from
ITV has announced business continuity plans to address the continuing coronavirus pandemic. The broadcaster assures viewers that news and popular TV shows like Coronation Street and Emmerdale will remain on air. Daytime linear TV viewing, as well as OTT consumption on ITV Hub, has increased.
Carolyn McCall, ITV’s CEO, today gave an overview of ITV’s response to the coronavirus crisis:
“This week has seen an escalation in the impact of the coronavirus with the
Viaplay, the Nordic streaming service, has reported major increases in viewing for its non-sports content.
Total streamed minutes on Viaplay – across Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland (excluding sports coverage) – were up 44% last week compared to the same week in 2019, and up 13% compared to the previous week. Started streams and streamed minutes (excluding sports coverage) were up 25% and 21%, respectively, on Saturday and Sunday when compared to the previous weekend.
Usually attended by over 90,000 delegates and 1,600 exhibitors from 160 countries, NAB, the OTT industry’s premier exhibition and conference, which was due to take place in Las Vegas in April, has been cancelled this year over fears of the spread of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Announcing the news on the event website, NAB’s President and CEO, Gordon Smith, said,
“Dear NAB Show community,
As you know, we have been carefully monitoring coronavirus
Whether they work for broadcasters, content owners, content producers, film studios, operators, service-providers or technology vendors, tell us who you think are the 50 most influential people in the UK online video industry!
ITV, the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster, has published its 2019 financial results which show strong growth across a range of the company’s activities.
BBC Studios, the principal commercial arm of the BBC, and ITV, the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster, today announce plans to launch the BritBox streaming service in Australia.
The ad-free subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming service will bring Australians an unrivalled collection of great British TV shows, and will build on the successful launch and operation of the service in both North America (USA and Canada) and most recently in the UK.
BritBox is anticipated to launch
ITV has announced Rhys McLachlan will become their new Director of Advanced Advertising.
McLachlan was previously Head of Global TV Strategy at Amobee, the global digital advertising technology company with whom ITV signed an exclusive UK and Ireland licensing agreement with last year.
Since announcing the Amobee deal, ITV has been working closely with Amobee to design, develop and integrate the technology to power ITV’s new programmatic TV platform, Planet V.
Reporting to Kelly Williams,
Channel 4 today announces the appointment of Bede McCarthy as Head of Product, All 4.
Reporting to Chief Product Officer Dave Cameron, Bede will be responsible for creating Channel 4’s’s digital product experience on All 4 in order to drive additional consumption as part of the channel’s mission to accelerate digital growth.
He will lead All 4’s talented team of product specialists to shape future product strategy and deliver customer value via a product roadmap
Sky and Disney today announced a new multi-year deal, making Disney+ available for purchase in the UK and Ireland on Sky Q, to be followed by NOW TV in the coming months. Customers will be able to watch great new shows like The Mandalorian and High School Musical; The Musical, The Series; The World According to Jeff Goldblum and more.
As the deal includes the first-pay window for 20th Century titles , Sky Cinema customers
