Advanced Television

TDC launches Blockbuster TVoD platform

September 12, 2016

Colin Mann @IBC

White-label video publishing company thePlatform has been selected by Danish telco TDC to develop the new online TVoD and electronic sell-through platform for the iconic home entertainment brand Blockbuster, which will launch across the Nordic region.

thePlatform’s mpx video management system delivers the main CMS infrastructure backbone for the project, which will launch with 8,000 titles. The fully integrated mpx commercial portal has been customised to link seamlessly with the OTT user interface developed by the TV App Agency.

According to thePlatform, mpx offers easy configuration for flexible payment, promotional activities, and token payments supporting the Blockbuster promotions, such as three movies for DKK99 (€13.30) – the leading marketing message of the past, which resonated with Danish consumers, and will now play a key part in the introduction of the brand into the Nordic streaming space.

To meet the ambitious time to market and strategic goals for TDC, thePlatform partnered with the TV App Agency, which has developed a sophisticated template app solution for the user interface. This collaboration has enabled Blockbuster to swiftly deploy their OTT solution in a matter of weeks.

Casper Hald, Head of Blockbuster at TDC Group, said: “We developed our initial version in-house, but after one year in the Danish market, we realised we needed to bring in industry experts to make the service easy to sign up, easy to pay, and easy to work instantaneously with robust scalability. Working with thePlatform and the TV App Agency has given us the ability to get to market quickly with the flexibility to differentiate from other services. We have been able to build a service that is simple for the end user to use, while delivering our rich library of content to consumers’ many screens.”

Neil Berry, Vice President and Managing Director, EMEA at thePlatform, said, “The evolution of consumers wanting to watch any screen anywhere continues to accelerate, and content owners are facing reduced time to market timelines and increased competition for consumers’ time and money. Using TV App Agency’s innovative template-based solutions, we are able to bring the best in class services together to offer rapid UI development across all devices, and deliver a consistent user experience regardless of platform or device.”

“Blockbuster needed a full end-to-end OTT solution quickly that could provide extensive device reach and differentiation,” said Bruno Pereira, Director and Founder of TV App Agency. “By using the TVA Template already pre-integrated with thePlatform, we were able to develop features on the apps that will allow Blockbuster to shine in this market with a consistent user experience across devices and amazing commerce features, and more importantly to feel confident that it can scale its business with two leading best of breed partners.”

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