Astro selects Kaltura to power streaming service
December 21, 2021
Astro, the Malaysian content and entertainment company, has chosen the Kaltura TV Platform to power sooka, its new streaming service targeted at millennials. Leveraging the multiple benefits of Kaltura Cloud TV, sooka went live in June across Malaysia and is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Astro selected the Kaltura TV Platform for sooka following a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP). Kaltura technology enables Astro to deliver linear channels, live events and on-demand viewing experiences on web and iOS and Android mobile devices.
Astro chose Kaltura as its technology partner due to its multiple worldwide reference cloud TV deployments. Additionally, a major influencing factor was the inherent flexibility of the Kaltura TV Platform. This allowed Astro to incorporate multiple business models and payment methods such as Google In-App Billing, and Apple In-App Purchase, with Direct Carrier Billing soon to follow.
Kaltura furthermore demonstrated the power of its productized approach to deploying cloud TV projects. It delivered the solution for sooka in under six months, enabling the service to be live in time to stream UEFA EURO 2020. This resulted in a high-impact debut for sooka, which ranked the number one entertainment app on Google Play within two weeks of launch.
sooka offers its viewers a freemium package with a selection of ad-based content that can be expanded into broader content bundles based on multiple subscription plans. It delivers live sports events like the Premier League, Euro 2020, Olympics 2020, BWF badminton, NBA, and Formula 1 as well as over 4000 hours of Malaysia’s favorite Malay and Asian dramas, movies, and variety shows, with an upcoming pipeline of sooka originals and exclusives.
“We created sooka as a standalone streaming service offering to capture the digital and mobile-first millennials with a unique value proposition in the face of an increasingly crowded OTT space. The flexibility of Kaltura’s TV Platform allows us to quickly adapt to viewer preferences and engagement models and it supports our business model. Kaltura was able to smoothly integrate the solution into our existing ecosystem, and very rapidly meet our tight timeline,” said Euan Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Pay-TV and Group COO at Astro.
“We are very excited to support Astro,” said Sameer Vuyyuru, Director, Head of Worldwide Telecommunications Business Development at AWS. “Being chosen to enable Kaltura to deliver sooka to customers is another strong endorsement of the cloud TV capabilities made possible through the work of Kaltura and AWS.”
“Pay-TV providers everywhere are recognizing the advantages of cloud TV as the optimal engine for offering Over-The-Top (OTT) services as part of a super-aggregation strategy, and the best way to reach audiences wherever they are,” said Nuno Sanches, General Manager, Media and Telecom at Kaltura. “We are proud to be entrusted by Astro for the launch of sooka, and we look forward to continuing to support Astro as it engages more and more subscribers with this exciting new cloud TV service.”