BitTorrent has reached deals with 20 consumer-electronics manufacturers, according to CEO Eric Klinker. The brunt of BitTorrent’s deals are for TV models that will launch over the Christmas period in Europe and Asia, according to Klinker.

For many Internet-connected HDTVs marketed in the US, the manufacturers already have deals with streaming-video providers such as Netflix, according to Klinker. “We are competing with the Netflixes and Hulus for space on the television,” Klinker commented.

Klinker futher noted that around 2 million titles of legal content are currently available in the BitTorrent realm, including movies, TV programmes, music and books. When asked how many illegal files are available via BitTorrent clients, Klinker responded, “We have no idea. It’s like asking Chrome how much pornography there is on the Internet.”

BitTorrent has confirmed a deal with Vestel, a Turkish TV manufacturer that was showing what it claimed was “the world’s first BitTorrent certified TV” at the IFA show in Berlin in 2011.

BitTorrent generates revenue from advertising; a premium, ad-free version of its service and through licensing deals. Its clients once consumed as much as 40 per cent of global Internet traffic, but the company has seen its share of overall usage decline as video-streaming services like Netflix have snowballed in populairty. In addition, the company claims its introduction of a new protocol into the BitTorrent client has reduced the amount of bandwidth the application’s global user-base consumes.

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