Published on the 20/01/2015 | Written by Clare Coulson

Spark announces hook to attract customers to free-TV-streaming, in a market place that is getting crowded…

Today Spark New Zealand announced that it will be offering its more than 600,000 home broadband customers a year’s free Lightbox subscription. This is the latest move in the battle for eyeballs in the rapidly evolving video-on-demand space and means that Spark customers will now have access to 6000 advertisement-free hours of television shows, with a bit of sports included too.

Spark home, mobile & business chief executive, Chris Quin, said “The future of TV is online. One billion hours of online TV is now watched globally each month, and we know the TV watching habits of our customers are rapidly shifting to on-line and on-demand – where they can watch what they want, when they want.” The announcement followed Spark’s partnership formed last year with online English Premier League rights owner CSM, meaning football, golf and some other sports will be part of the drawcard.

He added that the free Lightbox subscription is part of Spark’s overall ‘Thanks programme’ in which it aims to give back to customers. On the commercial side, however, it is a pre-emptive move, as Netflix is due to launch in New Zealand and Australia in March offering a flood of new content on demand to customers who sign up for the service.

When asked by iStart if Netflix triggered the move, Lightbox chief executive Kym Niblock said: “Not specifically – but because Lightbox was the first to launch its internet TV service in New Zealand we are in a good position to grow awareness and take-up before the others become established. We have a well-established product, and we intend to remain at the forefront of this growing market. This bundled offer has been in the pipeline for several months now. It makes perfect sense to partner with Spark, the largest ISP in New Zealand, to bring online TV to their existing customer base as part of a bundled offer. Plus, we wanted to get this promotion up-and-running as soon as possible as we know people are excited about the February launch of one of the most anticipated shows of 2015 – Better Call Saul.”

She also said that 2015 is set to be the year that online TV in New Zealand moves from niche to mainstream.

Niblock is right – streaming TV and movies is big business and there is competition aplenty. One independent A/NZ film production company’s answer to distribution made headlines recently and caught the attention of Apple. It chose a multi-platform distribution plan to avoid piracy – the first time it has ever been tried. The Christchurch-based film Sunday was released simultaneously across 20-plus cinemas in New Zealand, television (Rialto Channel), the internet (iTunes/Vimeo), DVD, airlines (Jetstar + Air New Zealand) and via Tugg – a bespoke cinema service available throughout North America on 7th December.

TVNZ pioneered on-demand TV streaming in New Zealand back in 2007, even ahead of BBC iPlayer. While it does not offer cinema-style movies, it has gone from strength to strength and recently beefed up its repertoire with the ‘Watch First’ option that allows users to stream a series ahead of its broadcast schedule as well as the inclusion of more off-air shows.

Overseas Netflix is the big name in streaming, having reinvented itself twice to transform from a DVD rental firm, which then added internet streaming of third-party video content and now also screens its own original content. Competitors Hulu and Amazon Prime have followed suit. Slingshot and sister-company Orcon have been offering Kiwi customers access to Netflix (and other international streaming sites such as Hulu and BBC iPlayer) since July and August last year respectively when they opened up their Global Mode offer, which circumvents geo-blocking on international sites.

Slingshot GM Taryn Hamilton said at the July launch of Global Mode: “We know Kiwis want to watch movies and TV series online – but are blocked from using the world’s best and most popular streaming services. We are now giving Kiwis access to these sites – and an option to pay for the content they want to watch at a fair price.”

When Netflix officially opens here in March viewers can expect to be able to access a curated selection of popular movies and TV shows in high-definition including original series Marco Polo, BoJack Horseman and DreamWorks Animation’s All Hail King Julien.

In a bid to remain relevant in an on-demand culture, veteran TV content distributor Sky TV announced in October major technology upgrades that would lay “the foundation for exciting future service upgrades”. These new services include an on-demand style offering for My Sky that allows users to download missed episodes without having to record them.

Whatever the outcome of the battle for eyeballs, customer choice will ultimately be weighed up against increasing broadband revenue for ISPs.