Netflix adds 3rd cable partner
November 1, 2013
By Colin Mann
Online entertainment service Netflix has added a third operator to its cable TV partners, with Denmark’s Waoo! following Virgin Media in the UK and Sweden’s Com Hem in offering subscribers the ability to access Netflix content via their set-top boxes.
Anders B Christjansen, CEO of Waoo!, said such a co-operation was obvious and a perfect strategic match, with the operator having the best Internet, and streaming having become popular. The combination of Netflix and Waoo! would give customers additional choice of high-quality TV via their set-top box.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for Danes to experience the wide variety of high quality entertainment Netflix offers. Being available on the Waoo! TV box is part of our strategy to allow Danes to access Netflix on the same device as they watch broadcast TV and other cable services,” said Joris Evers, Director, Global Corporate Communications, Netflix.
Christjansen suggested that it did not make sense to invest “staggering sums” in developing its own competing solution when it could cooperate with what he described as the world’s best provider of Internet TV. “The partnership with Netflix probably will not be the last,” he said. Waoo! already has a partnership with both TV 2 and Viasat to carry their streaming services.
Whereas both Virgin Media and Com Hem subscribers access Netflix via TiVo STBs, the Waoo! solution has been developed in collaboration with AirTies.
Netflix is said to be in talks with several US cable operators including Comcast and Suddenlink to make its online video service available as an app on their set-top boxes.
At a recent investor conference, Netflix CFO David Wells said the company would “love to reduce the friction to the end consumer” by being available on cable set-top boxes. It is up to pay-TV operators, he said, “to decide how much of a competitor they view us as or a complement.”