BBC takes a new step in television connected to the Internet

The British broadcaster BBC takes a new step towards connected television by launching a hybrid news service for Samsung connected televisions.

Combining video and text from the BBC News Online service, the British public broadcaster's new hybrid television service will initially be available on Samsung Smart TVs. With this initiative, BBC News, which until now was present on three screens (with more than six million downloads of the BBC application worldwide, of which half were in the United Kingdom), expands its distribution to a fourth screen.

Using an HTML hybrid, BBC will offer viewers a new content access experience. Its development reflects the BBC's strategy to deliver greater value for its news offering as well as the reuse of its products across a wide range of online devices. The launch aims to tap into the growing connected TV market, with predictions pointing to almost 36 million internet-connected TVs in the UK by the end of 2016.

The BBC's connected TV product has been conceived as a complement to its 24-hour news channel. Phil Fearnley, managing director of news at BBC Future Media, has acknowledged that "Internet-connected TV is developing as a medium and presents an interesting and attractive complement to our existing television services. As we have seen with the BBC iPlayer in the UK, and our smartphone apps, audiences enjoy the freedom and flexibility of BBC services at the time and place that suits them best, whether on the go or on the living room TV."

Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC, added: “This service expands the availability of the BBC around the world by accessing new audiences with an innovative on-demand format.”

This new BBC product for connected television will be available for free, for now, in the Samsung application store.