YouView CEO Richard Halton has said the hybrid broadcast service wants to deliver IP channels to all its households, regardless of whether they are connected to one of its shareholder ISPs.
“We see video over IP as a huge possibility,” Halton told the IHS Future of Digital Media Distribution conference in London. “We always set out to support IP streaming, initially well have a range of services over multicast, we want to make sure that range of content is available within the same EPG. Over time we want to open that up to unicast services.”
Already YouView shareholder TalkTalk is streaming linear channels into the YouView box with similar plans from BT. DMOL has also created a series of channel numbers for the DTT system that will be assigned to IP delivered channels.
Halton confirmed that YouView would be carrying out its first major hardware update on October 30th, three months after the platform went live.
A second stage of advertising was currently getting underway with a focus on the catch-up and HD capability of the YouView box. “We’ve tried to distill what YouView offers into two or three simple messages. In our case seven day catch up and subscription free. We’re going to be unembarrassed with that simple line, as a DTT product is relatively unique,” said Halton.
“Only a third of Freeview homes have a PVR, so for us it’s a really positive message. You must always know where the consumer is, and they are probably not as far forward as you, or as far forward as you think they are.”
