Germany: Local TV portal on Vestel TVs
October 23, 2023
Bayerische Medien Technik (BMT), in cooperation with Vestel, is improving local and regional content in Germany. The Local TV portal, which provides easy access to many live streams of local TV programmes and open channels in Germany, is now also available as an app on the Vestel TV platforms LINUX, Android TV and Fire TV.
On the Vestel LINUX platform, the Local TV Portal is pre-installed in the App Launcher area. On Android TV and Fire TV, the app can be installed from the relevant app stores using the search term ‘Lokal-TV Portal’.
In addition to the HbbTV variant, which has been available for 10 years via satellite with TV sets connected to the Internet, the new apps also enable households without a classic TV connection to access live streams of local TV programmes and open channels in Germany. The Local TV Portal is an initiative of the Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting (Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien) with the cooperation of other state media authorities in Germany.
The live streams are selected intuitively via the emblems of the federal states and the logos of the local TV providers. The station information describes the selected programmes and the broadcast areas. For TV stations for which BMT is hosting the media libraries, it is possible to start the on-demand offers directly from the Local TV portal. When the TV set is switched off, the Local TV Portal app stores the last selected channel and starts with it when it is switched on.