Sky to Launch SVOD With Vodafone

Sky has gazumped Telecom by this morning announcing it will launch a subscription video on demand service with Vodafone before the end of the year.

The service will be separate from Sky’s pay-TV platform, so you won’t have to be a subscriber to access content.

This is the model Quickflix offers for its premium TV service but Sky’s SVOD will offer both movies and TV series.

Vodafone, which already bundles Sky channels with the multi-play options, will bundle the new service with its broadband plans.

Since the two teamed up in 2009, more than 100,000 homes have opted for their mix of content and HD quality broadband.

“This is a really exciting new development for Sky,” Sky’s chief executive John Fellet said in a statement.

“This new service will appeal to many Kiwis who want the flexibility to watch movies and TV series when they want on a variety of devices.

“We are working hard to secure a top quality selection of content for this service.”

The demand content will be delivered via the Internet (for no extra cost) to MySky decoders or via Sky Go this year.

The NZ Herald’s John Drinnan reports Fellet is still negotiating a name and finalising eight rights deals for content.

“Content for the subscription video-on-demand service would include material that appears on Sky’s Soho channel as well as recent release and library material on movie channels.

“It gave consumers the option of watching content without paying the subscription for full linear channels, Fellet said.”

Stuff says the timing of the announcement “scotches the main basis for speculation it might be negotiating to buy Internet provider Orcon, though the broadcaster has continued to refuse to comment on that speculation”, while NBR says the deal puts Telecom’s Spark TV plans and Netflix’s Aussie ambitions in Sky’s “crosshairs”.

The announcement comes less than a month after Australia’s Inside Film reported Netflix is planning to launch into Australia and NZ in the first quarter of 2015.

Earlier this year, Fellet told NBR Sky was “running the numbers on a Netflix-style service” following its own market research that quizzed selected subscribers about SVOD options.