Foxtel launching IPTV service in August
July 18, 2013
Aussie pay-TV carrier Foxtel will launch its Play service in August.
Foxtel’s new IPTV service will be priced from A$25 per month, close to half the cost of basic video package and about one-quarter of its average revenue per user (ARPU) of about A$100 per month.
The Play option will allow viewers to watch programs from about 40 channels.
“That will liberate for a lot of people who have found Foxtel to be cost-prohibitive,” said Foxtel’s executive director of television, Brian Walsh, during a panel discussion at B&T’s MAD Week. “It will allow a lot of people who could not afford Foxtel before to get a Foxtel product over the net onto their PCs and on smart TVs.
“Suffice to say that we believe the future has to be about television that people are prepared to pay for fused with impressive technology that just makes it so much easier.”
Foxtel is battling to stimulate subscriber growth amid a prolonged consumer downturn and emerging competitors in the online space. Also, the new digital channels offered by the free-to-air networks have hampered Foxtel’s growth over the past few years.