Acetrax deal emphasises the OTT VOD opportunity for BSkyB
BSkyB has acquired online VOD provider Acetrax
BSkyB acquired the over-the-top transactional VOD provider Acetrax in April, with the news being revealed during the Pay TV operator’s Q3 results. Acetrax is the kind of company that, with the advent of connected TV devices, looked like a threat to traditional Pay TV. The fact that a leading Pay TV company has bought them adds to the feeling that major operators increasingly view OTT and connected TV devices as their turf.
In March, BSkyB unveiled NOW TV, its new Internet TV service offering access to Sky content on a wide range of Internet-connected devices, including movies and later, sports and general entertainment. BSkyB points out: “The acquisition [of Acetrax] will support the continued development of Sky’s OTT activities and further strengthen relationships with connected device manufacturers and content providers.”
Acetrax is a pan-European provider. It currently addresses homes in seven countries and boasts that it will soon have 60 million resident embedded apps in people’s homes.
John Moulding joined Videonet as editor at the start of 2010, having spent over 10 years writing about digital TV and the various technologies that have simultaneously disrupted and enriched the television business. With Videonet he is focused on the unstoppable march towards multi-screen, connected and personalized television. John was launch editor at Cable & Satellite International (now CSI), where he spent six years, before helping launch New Video Technology, and helped develop the IPTV World Series (IPTV World Forum, etc.) conference programmes from 2006-07. At home, he takes a Sky triple-play bundle, watches around one-third of content time-shifted, but is generally still happy to turn on the TV and see what's on (he can also remember when TV shut down after lunch!).
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