Freely to ‘support long-term health’ of TV

Speaking at the IBC conference on Friday, Thompson said that Freely is both “Freeview for the streaming age”, a unique service that is embedded in the next generation of smart TVs.

Thompson said that the Freely app makes all VOD players easily available, as did Freeview Play, but crucially also provides access to live TV. The UK’s main broadcasters have their own rail on the home page of the service that also permits access to on-demand content.

Consumers can watch live TV and then easily navigate to related on-demand content seamlessly, said Thompson.

All partner TV manufacturers provide a dedicated remote control button giving easy access to the Freely app, and Freely also comes with a traditional guide.

Thompson said Freely was launched primarily because most people watch TV on big screen TVs, but one in five UK consumers now watch content on that screen without a broadcast signal – a proportion that is expected to grow to half by the end of the decade.

The Freely platform is based on the HbbTV hybrid broadband-broadcast standard as an operator application.

Thompson said the platform was based on “our software” but was developed in partnership with TV manufacturers to give viewers access to the best that they love while preparing for a fully streaming future.

He said that the process of developing the platform had been “one of the best models of collaboration” in which he had been involved.

Hero product

Thompson said that while millions of UK homes will continue to use Freeview Play and Freesat in the coming years, the future will ultimately revolve around Freely, which will become the “hero product” for UK TV.

He said that he would be focusing primarily on the development of Freely going forward, in partnership with a number of TV brands that currently include Hisense, Vestel and Panasonic, with the ambition to be as widely distributed as possible. He said that five million TVs are bought every hear in the UK, meaning that there is an opportunity to build scale.

Thompson said that Freely was launched with the four main pubcasters. He said that one key advantage of the UK was the long history of the four public broadcasters working together through Everyone TV.

While Freeview has many more channels and discussions are ongoing to bring them on board, Freely will remain focused on the main national broadcasters rather than, for example, trying to bring on a huge raft of FAST channels, said Thompson.

“The technology allows IP-only channels to get on board but for now the focus is on the main broadcast channels,” he said.