The French media council CSA selected SelecTV for the first VOD service over the digital terrestrial network on May 31, with the licence being issued after a hearing of the various interested parties earlier in the month.
SelecTV was presented by the company of the same name, a subsidiary of TV Numeric, one of the two pay-TV platforms over DTT in the country.
SelecTV will offer – by subscription – access to a wide variety of HD movies and one 3D movie per month. Using a push-VOD model, the subscriber will be access the selected movie at any time from its PVR.
TV Num’s SelecTV is already available over DSL networks, where it will offer on a monthly basis around 320 movies, which can be viewed by subscription (at €10 a month) or by transaction, at between €3.99 and €6.99 per movie.
TV Num also operates a small bouquet of pay-TV channels on DTT, which includes Paris Premiere, Eurosport and TPS Star.
Canal+ has proposed two services, CanalPlay and Canal + a la demande, but has not yet obtained a licence.
Other candidates were Vaziva Conseil SAS for a proposed VOD service, Evazion TV SAS for the project Evazion TV, and TV77.
In France, the on demand services over digital terrestrial broadcasting will be known as ‘services de médias audiovisuels à la demande’, or SMAD over TNT.