Showmax has introduced live streaming to its SVOD service in Poland.
Its gave a debut to Saturday Night Live Polska on December 2 and there will be 15 episodes of the show, each last 45 minutes, in this season. SNL Polska streamed lice simultaneously on YouTube and on www.showmax.com. It was then uploaded to Showmax for on demand viewing.
Commenting on the launch, Akash Bhatia, Showmax CFO and member of the project team, said: “As an American, I grew up on SNL – it’s become part of our cultural identity. Working with NBCUniversal and the Showmax Poland team to bring the format to Central Europe was a privilege but also brought an extra layer of anxiety. The show is of course famous for airing live, which is something Showmax had never done before.
“Our engineering team pulled off a massive coup, turning Showmax from an on-demand only platform to having live-streaming capability in just three months. In addition to all the late nights and weekends worked to get us to this point, the engineering team also had a fully staffed war room working through the night on Saturday to make sure everything ran smoothly.”
He added: “As the world increasingly moves to on-demand viewing and binge watching, it’s refreshing to do a live show and it’s going to be interesting to see how the numbers pan out between live and recorded views. Either way, this is an important milestone for Showmax as we can now look to apply the live-streaming capability to other events”.
