New Zealand is upping the ante on IPTV services with Telecom New Zealand’s progressive digital arm, Spark Ventures, launching internet television service, Lightbox in late August.
Lightbox, is being positioned as a defensive Netflix play and is set to take on existing digital service Quickflix, subscription television from Sky TV and emerging digital content services from ISP Slingshot. Sky TV has flagged the imminent launch of a competitive video on demand service but has been scant on detail, which usher in the first direct competition between local pay TV services.
The Lightbox service will go live on August 28 and will be priced at NZ$15 for each 30-day subscription period.
The service can be used across multiple devices, including laptop, desktop, iPad and Airplay on Apple TV. Up to five devices can be registered to each Lightbox account and two shows can be played simultaneously.
The company is focused on TV series initially offering 5000 hours of television but will later include movies. Lightbox has also confirmed that deals have been signed with local producers. The company has already announced first-run subscription-video exclusives for Vikings, 24 and Mad Men.
Among the raft of new content confirmed by Lightbox will be exclusive first-run streams of season one of Outlander, other newly announced streaming exclusives include Alpha House, Betas and Arrested Development. Other shows that will be available for anytime-streaming are Masters of Sex, Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad, Doctor Who, Homeland, The Inbetweeners, Sons of Anarchy and House of Cards.
The new service is being run by former Foxtel, BBC and BSkyB executive, Kym Niblock as managing director. “We’re confident our content line-up includes shows that people want to watch and we’re looking forward to showing New Zealand that we’re a serious player in the entertainment space,” Niblock said
Telecom New Zealand, is in the midst of significant shift from former incumbent telecommunications carrier to a more diverse company focussing on data, mobility and cloud services. It will be officially rebranding as Spark in August and in June acquired cloud services specialist Appserv for NZ$17 million.
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