Browsing: Lightbox

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Orcon’s FreeMyRugby petition won’t cause riots, but it draws attention to the growing trend of sports broadcast bidding wars
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Orcon is taking a leaf out of the ‘Politician’s Handbook’ by attempting to mobilise the Kiwi masses through a petition, which aims to break Sky’s hold on the broadcasting rights for live rugby games. The petition is hosted at a microsite called FreeMyRugby.co.nz and draws attention to the fact that only New Zealanders with a Sky subscription—available for $74.75 a month on a Sky basic and sport package—are in a position to watch the All Blacks play live. And while sharing this common knowledge is unlikely to cause a riot, it does draw attention to how the media landscape is changing and how this might continue to impact Sky’s hold sports broadcasts.

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I stream, you stream, we all stream for various streaming services
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Spark Ventures’ Lightbox subscription video on demand service officially launched last night, and, not surprisingly, its arrival seems to have been the catalyst for a fair bit of activity in the streaming space, with TVNZ now offering online box sets of Orange is the New Black, Freeview’s Sam Irvine talking up an integrated broadcast and broadband offering, Quickflix claiming that more competition is a good thing and Sky, which recently announced another big profit increase, getting set to launch its own streaming service for non-Sky customers. So who’s got the best offer?

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Quickflix snaps up two local shows, responds to Lightbox and Sky
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Last week, shortly after the release of Telecom’s Lightbox offering, Quickflix announced an agreement with South Pacific Pictures that gave the veteran in New Zealand’s SVOD market rights to over 120 hours of local content via Go Girls and Outrageous Fortune. And given that Lightbox’s head of programming and local content Maria Mahony admitted to StopPress that she was currently in talks with local film distributors to secure a deal to screen several local shows, this announcement by Quickflix will no doubt be competitive blow to the newcomer.

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Lifting the Lightbox lid: a look inside Telecom’s new digital venture
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Ever since Telecom was legally precluded from using the ShowmeTV name, the industry has been curious as to what moniker would be introduced as a replacement. Since that debacle three months ago, Telecom’s digital ventures (TDV) unit has been very cagey about releasing any further information about its online TV offering. But now that all has been revealed, we sat down with head of programming and local content Maria Mahony to find out more about what Lightbox offers.

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