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Author: Annelise Berendt
Yesterday, BT announced a video-on-demand (VoD) deal with film company DreamWorks SKG for the provision of popular current films, including tiles such as Munich, Madagascar, Just Like Heaven, Red Eye and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, for its prospective IPTV service, named BT Vision. The films will be available to consumers in the pay-per-view window, and build on a range of older and classic films which BT already has access to via an existing deal with Paramount, the distribution entity for DreamWorks.
This deal is another building block in BT's move to become a significant distribution channel for content providers, and is a sign that momentum is continuing to grow in the run up to an autumn launch, despite last month's departure of BT Entertainment CEO Andrew Burke.
The hybrid service, containing both a Freeview digital terrestrial television (DTT) tuner and deploying Microsoft's IPTV technology, is intended to provide TV, films and music on demand, as well as services such as messaging and VoIP.
BT has been lining up content deals over recent months, working with a number of players including Turner Broadcasting, part of the Time Warner Group, to license TV programming and to develop interactive content. Other players include production company Endemol, National Geographic, HIT Entertainment, the BBC and Nelvana. Given that BT has stated it is not going for the premium sports market (and all the expensive content rights purchasing that entails), it is vital the operator gets enough popular content on board to attract consumers in what is a fiercely competitive pay-TV market.
In March the operator announced the branding of the service as "BT Vision" - it was previously referred to as "Nevis" - deciding to use the BT name rather than take the route of some of its peers including KPN and France Telecom, which chose to de-couple the telco name from their IPTV offerings creating "Mine" and "Ma Ligne", respectively. The BT brand certainly carries weight with the operator's existing customer base (and beyond) in terms of familiarity, and has connotations of trust and responsibility. The trick now it to convert these customers into paying clients of VoD services.
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