The performance of UPC Hungary’s YouTube offer on existing set-top boxes has exceeded all expectations.
Launched in May 2014 and with projected usage rates of between 30-40% of customers, it has in fact been tried by 68% of the operator’s subscribers, with 83% of this number returning for additional views.
Last September, UPC Hungary announced that customer were viewing more than one million minutes per day of YouTube content during the first three months of availability on TV.
UPC Hungary continues to say that the average viewing time of a YouTube session is 45 minutes.
It also says that UPC Hungary YouTube viewing is complementary to primetime TV, rising in the waking hours and remaining relatively consistent until primetime viewing hours in the evening.
To make YouTube available on existing STBs, UPC Hungary virtualised boxes’ functionality in the cloud. Using the CloudTV Streamcast platform from ActiveVideo, it can render online video UIs and conduct manipulation of the cloud, delivering both the UI and online video as a single video stream to any STB.
UPC Hungary is working with both YouTube and Metrological, a provider of interactive TV apps, to give full access to the YouTube Leanback experience, optimised for TV.
The operator currently sees the service as a value-added offering rather than a new source of revenue.
