Orange TV Launch Pushed Back To 2008
By Robert Andrews - Wed 12 Dec 2007 02:29 AM PST
It’s been a long time coming - now Orange has pushed the launch of its UK IPTV service back in to next year. The telco told IBC conference delegates at Amsterdam in September the service, delivering channels over the company’s broadband landline to a set-top box, ”will launch later this year”. That always looked like an ambitious target since the only suggestion the service would actually materialise here was the press release to say cartoon characters had been designed to appear within the EPG. But Orange today confirmed to paidContent:UK the service would not launch fully until 2008.
Spokesperson: “The first phase - our trial to existing paying broadband customers - started in November. Around 300 customers in Leeds and London are currently providing us with essential feedback. Once we’ve reviewed and assessed this feedback, we’ll then continue to roll out to other major towns and cities in the new year.”
The plans were first announced back in June 2006. The service is already available in France, where the impressive Rewind TV facility - offering catch-up viewing synced across TV, mobile and the desktop - is due to launch in Q1 2008. We were told in October the UK would also get Rewind TV.
Orange will arrive to a market in which BT (NYSE: BT) Vision has first-mover advantage and in which Tiscali, too, has its own TV platform. The BT play, launched in December 2006 and marketed from May, is targeting 100,000 customers by year’s end. Tiscali, UK chief Mary Turner tells Reuters today, she expects 50,000 customers by year’s end, plans to start advertising it in January and plans to quadruple viewers to 200,000 by end of 2008. Orange has today announced a VOD rental deal for MGM movies that covers France, Spain, Poland and the UK (via Hollywood Reporter).
Posted in: Companies, France Telecom, Orange, Tiscali, Media, TV, IPTV, Money
