All seven shareholders in the YouView consortium have agreed to fund the IPTV operation for a further five years.
The agreement between telcos BT and TalkTalk and broadcast partners the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Arqiva gives the broadband TV service a mandate to develop new services.
YouView recently announced a recruitment drive that will see the hiring of another 50 product designers, developers and test engineers.
Richard Halton, CEO, YouView said, “I am delighted that all seven shareholders have committed to another five years, based on the core principles that have already made YouView such a success. Our plans for expansion will allow YouView to develop more consumer facing functionality, widening the gap with the rest of the market and allowing viewers to discover more of the content they love.”
YouView has over a million households connected – principally BT and TalkTalk customers – and is continuing to expand the number of IP-delivered channels to augment channels taken from DTT.
However, it is clear that the broadcaster shareholders are not entirely happy. Freeview and Digital UK – whose partners include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Arqiva – are planning to launch further connected services under the Freeview Connect brand – already in use internally by the DTT platform – in order to get further take up of their catch-up TV services.
