91Èȱ¬

The 91Èȱ¬ has today launched its 91Èȱ¬ News product for connected TV which will bring video news clips via the web to living-room TV screens.

The 91Èȱ¬ News product for connected TV combines existing video and text content from 91Èȱ¬ News Online and will initially be made available on Samsung's range of Smart TVs. It will subsequently be made available on a range of connected devices over time.

The development reflects the 91Èȱ¬'s strategy to deliver greater value for money for licence-fee payers by repurposing 91Èȱ¬ Online products for a wide range of devices. The launch aims to tap into the growing internet-connected TV market, with predictions that almost 36 million TVs with built-in internet capability will be installed in UK homes by the end of 2016 (1).

The 91Èȱ¬ News product for connected TV has been designed as a complement to the 91Èȱ¬'s live 24-hour news channel. Editorial teams in the newsrooms will curate clips around the clock to run alongside text-based news from 91Èȱ¬ News Online – all started, stopped, and navigated via the remote control.

Phil Fearnley, General Manager for News & Knowledge in 91Èȱ¬ Future Media, said: "Internet-connected TV is developing as a medium and presents an exciting and engaging complement to our existing TV services. As we've seen with 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer in the UK, and our global smartphone applications, audiences enjoy the freedom and flexibility of 91Èȱ¬ services at a time and place that suits them – whether on the move or on the living-room TV.

"Looking forward, we are particularly interested in creating seamless, personalised, and location-aware experiences of 91Èȱ¬ News across all connected devices – mobiles, tablets, computers, and TVs. Internet-connected TV is still in its infancy, but innovations such as this hint at the long-term creative potential of the internet as a medium."

Steve Herrmann, Editor of the 91Èȱ¬ News website, said: "By combining the latest and best reports in video from the 91Èȱ¬'s unrivalled newsgathering and TV news teams with the extensive range of up-to-the-minute reporting from the 91Èȱ¬ News website, this service broadens the availability of the 91Èȱ¬'s world-class journalism to audiences in a new and innovative on-demand format."

The 91Èȱ¬ News product for connected TV will be available free of charge and will be accessible from within the Samsung Apps Store on Samsung Smart TVs from today (Friday 17 June). 91Èȱ¬ Worldwide will also launch an international version of the product which will be advertising supported.

Notes to Editors

1. Source: 3 Reasons Ltd, Spring 2011. This number projects sets technically capable of connection; numbers of actual connected sets will be lower, depending on broadband penetration, consumer behaviour etc.

• Interactive TV via Ceefax launched in 1973
• Next-generation Ceefax "91Èȱ¬ Text" launched in 1999 and evolved via 91Èȱ¬i to become 91Èȱ¬ Red Button – digital text and video streams delivered on digital broadcast platforms
• 91Èȱ¬ Red Button is the UK's most popular interactive TV service, with 12 million users per week
• As the trend towards convergence continues, viewers' familiarity with 91Èȱ¬ Red Button will be leveraged to break down the traditional boundaries of linear and on-demand
• In its recent the 91Èȱ¬ Trust indicated that costs for the re-versioning of content for IPTV should be captured within the 91Èȱ¬ Red Button service licence budget:
• The 91Èȱ¬ is responding to growth in the internet-connected TV market and the appetite for optimised services this has created and intends to repurpose its core online products for emerging platforms

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