Subscribers paying for BT Sport through a different third-party (such as Sky or Virgin Media) will not be entitled to the free subscription. However, customers who are paying BT/EE directly for their subscription can still access Discovery+ on their Sky box and other third-party devices.

Discovery+ is not yet available on BT TV’s own service, meaning subscribers will need to access the app through other routes, such as on their smart TVs or through an Amazon Fire stick.

Additional sports content subscribers will receive for free includes the 2023 Australian Open and Roland-Garros tennis, more than 300 days of cycling (including the Tour de France) and all events at the Olympic Games Paris in 2024.

BT Sport and Eurosport UK will keep their current branding for the time being, but will be brought together in the future.

He said: “A lot of people are also starting to realise, for an operational set up of FAST channels, you need a facilitator but you could also need a technology provider to physically connect those FAST channels into the platform. Those come with a real cost when we’re thinking about the scale of opportunity and return on investment.

“Going back to the talent that’s required to launch a FAST channel, you go from commercial negotiations to needing editors, a content operations team to physically deliver the content to a provider, and you need channel managers who are reading the available data to then go ahead and programme those channels.”

Given the costs and operational challenges of launching in the FAST/AVOD space, Keeble argued that content strategy and curation are vital to securing a return on investment. Even for early adopters, if a service’s content strategy does not align with  local connected TV market and advertiser requirements, Keeble believes that rights holders will “only get eyeballs and not revenues returned.”

Joining him were David Smyth, CEO of Beyond Rights, Kerense Samanidis, Managing Director of M&E Digital Consulting, and Simon Miller, Managing Director International, Gracenote, Nielsen.

Smyth also believes that the AVOD/FAST space contains tremendous growth opportunities, but “not for everyone and with every piece of content.” He elaborated: “The more that market matures, the more true that becomes. As it matures, the demand for new content spikes, the demand for exclusivity spikes. We begin moving away from deep libraries and towards a space which looks and feels like basic TV.”

Keeble highlighted discoverability as an important part of the success of FAST channels, with the likelihood of being discovered determined by how high a channel sits on the EPG.Miller also emphasised discoverability and spoke about how EPGs have evolved alongside connected TV to include rich imagery as part of content discovery. Speaking about Gracenote, a provider of metadata for content discovery, he said: “We work with a tremendous amount of data in the background The deeper we describe a programme the more prescriptive we can be in personalising what appears in front of somebody.

“If you take Game of Thrones for example, it can be described as adventure. It can also be described as a romance or as an action series.A sophisticated distribution platform will know whether the viewer has previously watched a lot of romantic content, and they’ll present an image for Game of Thrones that throws up more of a romantic angle, as opposed to the next viewer who watches a lot of action, where the content can be presented with a stronger action thread”.

Kerensa believes  fierce competition in the D2C space is causing service providers to realise that SVOD will only be a part of their streaming business and that they should seriously consider exploiting and licensing content on AVOD/FAST channels. .

She cited Paramount as an example of a player successfully pursuing a hybrid model. Kerensa said: “What Paramount does so well is using all  its different platforms and business models to really support one another. The Paramount channel on Pluto TV really helps drive traffic for its SVOD proposition.”

Both FOX and Discovery have said they will use Roku’s watermark solution to verify their inventory, and ad technology providers Google, HUMAN, Basic Technologies, Innovid and Magnite, have announced they will be integrating the technology after it is rolled out. Roku-owned OneView will be the first ad buying platform to offer inventory automatically validated by the solution.

Louqman Parampath, VP of Product Management at Roku, said “As America’s No. 1 TV Streaming Platform, we are uniquely positioned to help the industry preempt device spoofing. This is powerful and free technology that will help advertisers accelerate their shift to TV streaming with even more confidence.”

Bill Murray, Vice President of Programmatic Solutions, Discovery, commented “Roku’s Advertising Watermark assures our advertiser clients that they are buying genuine Discovery inventory on Roku devices. We’re excited that Roku has brought its data, operating system, and ad technology together to easily prevent ad spoofing.”

Ad verification platform DoubleVerify analysed over a trillion CTV ad impressions across 80 markets between May 2020 and June 2021, and found significant adoption of spoofing scams over bot scams by fraudsters. Bot scams experienced a 44% drop, and over the period observed 36% of all CTV fraud was conducted through spoofing. DoubleVerify reports that, in Q4 2021, 18% of unprotected CTV ads traded programmatically were either invalid traffic or fraud.

BT says the companies want to conclude discussions about the joint venture in the second quarter of 2022 and, upon approval by the relevant competition authorities, hope to launch the business later in the year.

The announcement signifies that talks between DAZN and BT – which would have seen the sports streaming service acquire BT Sport –  have now collapsed. Last month, DAZN was reportedly on the brink of reaching a takeover deal worth $800M with the sports channel network. The move would have established DAZN as a serious player in the UK’s sports broadcasting landscape, but now the streaming service will have to wait until 2025 for a fresh shot at winning rights to the Premier League, as BT, Sky and Amazon have all agreed to extend their broadcast rights deal until then.

Kevin Mayer, Chairman of DAZN says, “We remain fully committed to growing our business and investing in the UK, as you will see in the near future. On this occasion, however, the deal for BT Sport became uneconomical for DAZN. However, we respect that BT chose a different strategic path and wish BT, BT Sport and Discovery all the best for the future.”

Marc Allera, Chief Executive of BT’s Consumer division explains, “The proposed joint venture with Discovery would create an exciting new sports broadcasting entity for the UK and would act as a perfect home for our BT Sport business. With a shared ambition for growth, as well as the combination of our world-class sports assets along with Discovery’s premium sports and entertainment content, our customers will benefit from even more content in more places.”

JB Perrette, President and CEO of Discovery Streaming & International, also commented: “We are excited about this opportunity with BT Group to offer consumers a stronger and simplified combined sport offering in the UK and Ireland, and, more broadly, to advance our strategy of bringing sports and entertainment to more consumers on the platform of their choice.”

The potential acquisition was first reported last Autumn; however negotiations apparently stalled and U.S. media company Discovery Inc. entered negotiations with BT as a rival bidder. Reuters reports that Discovery proposed a joint venture with BT, which the company weighed up as a possible alternative to sale. According to two Reuter sources, DAZN and Discovery are both still in negotiations with BT, but DAZN is thought to be the leading contender. The transaction would be a significant cash injection as the telecommunication company rolls out 5G next-gen wireless networks across the country.

If carried through, the deal would represent the latest in a series of bold plays for major sports rights by the streaming service. At the close of last year, as part of a broadcasting partnership with Pay TV operator Movistar, DAZN acquired domestic rights to air 175 matches from LaLiga – the top Spanish football league. The €4.96B deal saw a 20% rise in LaLiga’s rights valuation. In partnership with Sky, the company has also won domestic broadcast rights for the German Bundesliga, and exclusive rights for 114 Serie A matches.

UFC content is also available on the Eurosport App for Spanish viewers. Additionally, in the Netherlands the linear channel Eurosport 1 will broadcast a selection of live action events throughout the year. Programming appearing on the services will include expert insight and analysis by leading names in the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) world – including Jorge Lera and Gonzalo Rodriguez in Spain, and former MMA star Marloes Coenen in the Netherlands.

UFC is the world’s leading MMA organisation, with coverage of its events being broadcast to 900 million people in 170 countries and boasting a global fan base of 625 million people, according to the organization.

In June 2021, Discovery established a dedicated sports division – Discovery Sports –to support collaboration between its range of sports brands, including Eurosport, Global Cycling Network, Global Mountain Bike Network, Gold Digest and GOLF TV. Most notably, the company won exclusive broadcast rights to the 2018-2024 Olympics across 50 European countries €1.3bn in 2014.

Excluding Italy, San Marino and Vatican City, the company also has global exclusive broadcast rights for Giro d’Italia (the prestigious Italian cycling grand tour) and last year signed a rights deal with the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS) to carry its skiing world cup content (and other regional championships) exclusively, in over 40 markets. Coverage of all these sporting events is broadcast on its Eurosport channels and streamed on discovery+.

Gijs Poortman, Head of Discovery Sports Netherlands, said: “Our experience in building and rolling out one of the most rapidly expanding streaming products in discovery+ will provide a natural home for UFC, one of the fastest growing and most exciting sports globally. With the acquisition of the rights to broadcast UFC on discovery+, we are further expanding our already broad sports offering with the most premium fight sport.”

David Shaw, UFC Senior Vice President of Content and International, said: “The Discovery team came to us with a vision perfectly aligned with our growth aspirations in Europe. This multi-year, multi-territory agreement will give UFC and our athletes a platform like never before, providing our fans in the Netherlands and Spain with access to more localised content as well as all the big blockbuster events. We’re excited about taking UFC to the next level alongside Discovery.”

discovery+ has traditionally specialised in platforming factual content, and hosts shows across a range of genres, including true crime, food and nature. Catering to Canada’s substantial French-speaking population, over a 1,000 of Discovery’s most popular series will be available with French subtitles. This latest rollout comes on the back of Discovery’s announced merger with Warner Media, expected to conclude in mid-2022.

Discovery will introduce the Canadian market to discovery+ thanks to an integrated marketing partnership with Corus Entertainment, continuing its longstanding relationship with the company. Corus is the Canadian mass media and entertainment conglomerate, which owns an expansive range of media assets in the country (including a television network of 15 terrestrial channels, 39 radio stations and other digital and social platform)  Corus has previously teamed up with Discovery to produce and distribute children’s content across Canada, as well as internationally. Corus media assets including linear channels, radio, digital, and social platforms will be harnessed.

Doug Murphy, President and CEO at Corus Entertainment says, “As the country’s leader in lifestyle content, Corus’ extensive suite of media assets provide broad scale and reach to audiences seeking to experience Discovery’s deep library of world class content wherever they are. With our expertise in driving discoverability and brand recognition, we look forward to supporting the growth of discovery+ in Canada.”

Discovery is launching with a roster of partnerships geared towards facilitating ad sales. In September 2020, it partnered with the Supply Side Platform (SSP) Magnite, and had also previously partnered with the omnichannel Demand Side Platform (DSP) MediaMath, to enhance its programmatic advertising capabilities. Lauri Baker, SVP Sales, TV Everywhere, Discovery commented: “Leveraging partners like MediaMath will help us pioneer efficient, effective and transparent transactions of our premium video, making it easier for our advertisers to measure and scale their campaigns.” Discovery also has an agreement with Comcast-owned TV software and ad decisioning platform provider, FreeWheel, to improve targeted advertising for media buyers.

Discovery says the discovery+ streaming service will offer “incremental scale and reach, along with lighter ad loads and data-driven cross-platform capabilities, creating a more powerful and impactful experience for both consumers and advertisers.”

Discovery+ in Canada is priced at Can$4.99 per month, with an ad free version of the service costing Can$6.99. It is available on the following devices and platforms:

-Amazon Fire TV streaming devices and Fire TV Smart TVs

-iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV HD & Apple TV 4K

-Google devices and platforms including Android phones and tablets, Google TV and other Android TV OS devices, and Google Chromecast and Chromecast built-in devices

-Microsoft Store on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S devices

– The Roku platform

– Samsung Smart TVs (2017 and newer)

“We are thrilled to launch discovery+ in Canada, a country of devoted Discovery fans and home to many of the most beloved stars in our family,” says JB Perrette, President and CEO of Discovery Streaming and International. “We know it will resonate with our loyal audience in Canada, as we continue to roll the service out to a number of key markets around the world throughout the rest of 2021.”

Notably, the company believes it will partner with SVOD No.6 through to SVOD No.300+ (approximately) (numbered by market share) in a given territory. This ambitious launch is not about serving the very long tail, but reaching the mainstream of a growing streaming TV audience.

Called Struum, the new streamer will ingest and host the content itself, so this is not a content discovery hub that hands off to apps using deep-linking. Media partner brands will be protected. It will use a payment model where a Struum subscription is converted to credits that can be used on individual content assets that could come from any of the hundreds of service/content partners who are present on the platform. The company says the monthly price will allow someone to watch at least one hour per night on the service.

Struum was founded by former Disney and Discovery executives Lauren DeVillier (who is CEO), Paul Pastor, Eugene Lieu and Thomas Wadsworth, and is backed by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company. Firstlight Media, the lead tech provider behind the service, is also an investor. Struum will launch with close to 40 SVOD partners already under its roof in the U.S., adding up to 20,000 content assets, it has been revealed.

Every SVOD that is represented will be paid a revenue share for each of their content assets that is watched. Thus, consumers will be able to move seamlessly across a diverse library of content without navigating multiple apps or paying multiple subscriptions. And that is the core consumer value proposition. You will not have to commit $6.99 or $9.99 to a single media brand in order to access their content and then repeat that process with multiple media group apps.

Struum is not intended to compete with the giants who make up the top three or five SVOD services in a market. This new service is intended to aggregate ‘the rest’, which will still include some of the biggest names in television and movies. If the service were named ‘The Next 300’ that would give an idea of what they are trying to become. The vision is that Struum will become part of consumer habit – one of the first VOD services anyone turns to together with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max or Hulu, for example.

Paul Pastor, Chief Business Officer & Co-Founder at Struum, believes that without a service like this, U.S. consumers will work their way through the streaming majors as part of the new discovery rituals that are being formed, “before being dumped in a wide ocean of services where they neither know the brand behind them or the value proposition.” He explains: “We can become a point of aggregation, their third or fourth choice service.”

Once inside this new service, Struum will provide viewers with a friction-free journey to content from the rest of the digital market, providing serendipity (thanks to the vast and diverse content offer) but with the curated intelligence that goes with advanced data analytics, user profiling and data-enabled content recommendation.

The service is built on a cloud-native streaming platform created by Firstlight Media and hosted on Microsoft Azure. Firstlight Media boasts more than 110 microservices, player libraries and UI clients, and provides AI/ML capabilities as part of its comprehensive solution. Struum also makes use of Azure AI technology.

Pastor emphasises that the focus of the service is the aggregation of “aspirational” Tier 1 and Tier 2 SVOD partners who fall outside the Big Five in a given market (and the focus initially is on the U.S.). Struum’s SVOD partners will range from traditional content owners who are migrating their busines to D2C to what Pastor calls ‘passion services’ that have highly targeted and niche audiences.

He reckons Struum will give partners the chance to gain more time and attention from consumers and to become part of their entertainment habit, helping to scale their own digital businesses. Passion streamers “can draw more light to their service”, as he puts it.

It is easy to see why the 200^th largest streaming provider in a market might want to get itself into a large shop window but why would the No.6 or No.10 SVODs want to cooperate with Struum when they have the investment and marketing power to push their own service brands hard?

Because most want multiple front doors to get consumers into their funnel and will welcome efficient customer acquisition, Pastor argues. “We are providing more points of discovery and promotion for their content.”

He says the frictionless discovery and consumption is the most critical piece of what his company offers to potential partners, with fewer opportunities for consumers to be distracted from watching TV, even if there is more content competition within the service itself. “Even services in positions No.7, No.8 or No.9 [as examples] need to fight to become part of our daily habit and ritual at a time when the market is so disrupted that you could lose that time and attention,” he suggests.

Pastor also highlights the opportunity to attract secondary and tertiary audiences who would not subscribe to the content owner’s own app. “There are people they [potential SVOD partners] will never get across the subscription threshold but who would like to watch one or two of their shows.” These consumers are viewed as an incremental revenue opportunity for the content partners.

Struum also provides an opportunity for ad-supported media companies to experiment with a hybrid model without going so far as introducing a paid tier on their own player services. The company is in active conversations with AVOD providers about this.

Pastor is confident Struum is part of the customer acquisition and retention solution for its service partners. The company will manage its own direct subscriber relationship using its understanding of the full catalogue (which it hosts) for smart curation and content marketing. Struum believes it can help partners optimise their asset pricing (each partner determines how many credits each of their content assets should be ‘sold’ for).

At launch, Struum will have a single price but could later introduce tiers that give consumers the opportunity to consume more. And if someone is watching a lot of content from a particular SVOD provider’s catalogue, they can be moved onto a subscription for that SVOD partner, at which point they keep watching the assets within Struum but the views are no longer deducted from their credits.

That ‘upsell’ will be managed by Struum. A roadmap item is to allow new Struum subscribers to tick off, during sign-up, any SVOD services they already subscribe to, so these views can be ignored by the credit system.

Firstlight Media is an established streaming tech provider with AT&T and Fox among its customers. The company lists encoding, origin/packaging, authentication and billing, DRM, player/app development and analytics among its many capabilities. The deal with Microsoft Azure will guarantee the agility and scale to grow the Struum service rapidly.

Among the highlights of the Firstlight Media contribution, as outlined by Juan Martin, CTO & Co-Founder at Firstlight Media, is the ability to ingest hundreds of thousands of content assets very quickly from hundreds of partners, plus its content asset management (the company says it has a very programmer-friendly CMS) plus the data science that will underpin the personalisation of content discovery.

In terms of the content ingest and management, Martin says the backend challenge is handling different formats and metadata approaches and both enriching and normalising the metadata, as well as making the assets available to consumers quickly. Rights management is another task that falls to the Firstlight Media backend. If the service grows as planned, the system will have to handle assets from multiple partners in international markets.

The costs of running the Struum service will be amortized over a large number of VOD services and their content libraries. The new streamer claims it will therefore provide a cost-effective way to surface and present content for the media companies that use it.

Firstlight Media is using advanced metadata enrichment techniques including AI to better understand content like, notably, its emotional intent. Combined with the CMS, this means the relationships between different content can be ascertained, leading, in a simple example, to content collections, as well as advanced recommendation.

Compared to content discovery hubs that offload consumers to apps using deep linking, Struum will ensure less friction in the consumer-to-content journey, the company believes. And of course, nobody is going to be pointed to content they cannot view within an existing subscription (because the Struum subscription will cover it).

Pastor emphasises the importance of the content brands that will sit under the Struum umbrella. “Brands are critically important for us and there is brand attribution throughout the service to drive value to our partners as well as to communicate the value of our subscription to the consumer,” he says.

Andre Christensen, CEO and Co-Founder of Firstlight Media, says of the project: “Struum is uniquely and innovatively attacking a growing industry problem: consumers’ frustration around finding, paying for and accessing content in a crowded SVOD market.

“As a result of our work with Microsoft and the Azure cloud platform, Struum will be able to achieve rapid service velocity at launch, to scale as subscribership grows, and to nimbly deploy new, cloud-based features that promote engagement, monetisation and long-term value.”

Learn more about Struum at Videoscape Europe

Paul Pastor, Chief Business Officer & Co-Founder at Struum, will be speaking at Videoscape Europe – the thought-leadership event for streaming television – in March. You can find more details about the event, the agenda and how to register to the free content, here.

World Wrestling Entertainment and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments also participated in the round, along with existing financial backers Causeway Media Partners, Fertitta Capital, and DCM Ventures.

Founded in 2006, FloSports offers a direct-­to-­consumer solution for underserved leagues, governing bodies and independent rights holders, providing coverage of 25 sports that broadcast more than 10,000 live events annually.

In the first quarter of 2019 the company said it entered more than 55 new or extended rights deals, including with the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA); The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF); Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB); United World Wrestling; the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA); the German Bundesliga; and Eurosport.

In Q1 2019, FloSports also claims to have grown annual recurring revenue by more than 50% year-on-year and added more net subscribers than during all of 2018. It said it plans to use the funding to continue to investment in middle- and long-tail rights partnerships.

“We are excited to continue building on the momentum of our recent strong growth, including our best quarter ever,” said FloSports CEO and Co-Founder Mark Floreani. “With this new round of funding from our investors, we will further enrich underserved sports communities by broadening our existing coverage and expanding into new verticals.”

He added: “While live events are the centre of our offering, original programming is a cornerstone – we’re committed to providing our subscribers with engaging content out of season.”

Discovery’s Chief Development, Distribution and Legal Officer, Bruce Campbell, said: “We are big believers in the consumer appeal of OTT verticals like FloSports to serve passionate communities and fans.”

“FloSports aligns nicely with Discovery’s global direct-to-consumer strategy and provides us with opportunities to apply learnings to our own OTT products. We’re excited to deepen our participation in this growth and innovation story.”

Joyn will feature live streams of more than 50 TV channels, plus an on-demand offering of original series, shows, exclusive previews and other local programming.

Content the stakeholders and 15 other content partners will be available initially and over time programming from Maxdome and the Eurosport Player will also be integrated into the service.

Joyn will be available to German viewers free of charge and without registration on iOS and Android-enabled devices as well as on the web and via Smart TVs.

Content will be available seven days before TV broadcast and for 30 days after on catch-up.

“As the truly local premium platform, we are aiming to transform the German video entertainment market,” said Alexandar Vassilev, CEO and Managing Director of Joyn.

“Taking our first steps in the coming months, we invite everyone in Germany to #joynthejourney and our passionate team of 250-plus colleagues to build the German ‘Champion of Choice’ video platform together.”

The new brand combines the words “Joy” and “Join” and ProSiebenSat.1 said the platform aims to provide entertainment that is fun, connects people and brings together one of the most extensive German TV streaming offers in one place.

Joyn CCMO and Managing Director, Katja Hofem, said: “Authenticity and humanity, a brand that listens to the user: that’s Joyn. We are combining not only the programming of ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery, but also the content of many other partners.”