‘YouView had interest from 140 providers’

YouView has received interest from around 140 providers, from brands to independent providers, for their content to appear on its platform, the IPTV provider claims.

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Tristia Clarke, commercial director of TalkTalk, which is a stakeholder in the service, told delegates at the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival that a range of brands and content producers have approached YouView since its launch last month.

Although she did not name specific companies, Clarke said these vary from retailers looking to launch specific shopping channels, motor brands looking to provide programming around motorsport and charities looking to roll out bespoke content on the platform.

She said: “We want to make it as accessible as possible, to big scale broadcasters like Sky [which has its Now TV player on the service] down to charities and we will be issuing a rate card over the next few months.”

Brands and producers looking to monetise their content on the platform were advised to think about integrated revenue opportunities such as sponsorship or product placement.

Clarke also said YouView is set to make its own second screen companion app, which would also give consumers the ability to record programmes when they are not at home.

Although YouView launched last month it is not expected to reach scale until the autumn, when the service will roll out a major above the line marketing campaign.

This will also be when broadband stakeholders Talk Talk and BT make their YouView packages available, which will heavily subsidise the cost of the YouView box – which currently retails at £299 – when attained with broadband and talk packages.

Clarke said: “It’s fair to say YouView is a bit of a ‘best kept secret’, like iPlayer it’s definitely worth waiting for.”

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