FreeCast is announcing the addition of IP detection and localised content management technologies to SelectTV. The ability to match localized content, both programming and ads, with viewers to whom that content is geographically relevant will be essential to making broadcast networks available over-the-top.

As more television viewing moves online, local broadcast stations risk missing out on vital revenue, which comes largely from local advertisers trying to reach customers only in their geographic area, such as lawyers and car dealerships. SelectTV will now be able to recognise which DMA a user is accessing the service from, using that information to serve up their own local affiliate feeds, including relevant local news, sports, weather, and advertising.

The company is willing to pay three to four times the retrans fees that broadcasters and cable networks receive from regional cable distributors, confident that subscribers will be eager to pay for web-based access to their favourite channels, both local and national.

William Mobley, CEO of FreeCast, highlighted the significance of this development. “This capability to provide local content via the web is critical. We’ve seen huge companies, from Apple to Dish Network, fail to solve that problem, and there’s been fear that a lot of the broadcasters out there would simply get left behind, or price themselves out of the market with expensive subscription apps. But now, a SelectTV customer will be able to log in and see content that’s relevant to them, relevant to where they live, without having to hunt down their own local stations or watch a generic national feed.”

With this technology ready to be deployed, FreeCast executives including Mobley will blitz Consumer Electronics Show and upcoming National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, as well as the National Association of Television Programme Executives conference in Miami, taking meetings with network executives and local broadcasters.

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