Major brands battle it out to sign new content to their online streaming services.
Electronics giant Samsung has just announced 1,400 titles of HBO shows including top series like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Boardwalk Empire and TrueBlood will be available via its Appstore, installed onto a Samsung Smart TV or Blu-ray player.
However, it will be available to Samsung subscribers only in the U.S at present, where it has just been announced, although TV fans here will be hoping it will be launched internationally in the near future.
The app, known as HBO GO will also allows users access HBO Documentary Films, HBO Sports and a wide selection of blockbuster theatricals.
“By streaming HBO GO content directly onto a Samsung TV, we deliver exactly what consumers want – on demand, quality entertainment at no additional charge to HBO subscribers.”
This announcement comes as online streamer, Netflix, also said to be in talks to distribute an original TV series starring Kevin Spacey, another according to the Wall Street Journal.
It is part of “a growing behind-the-scenes push” by the online streamer to get rights for original content and new movies, according to the WSJ.
Last year it penned a $US1 billion deal with Epix, a pay-TV channel owned by Viacom, Lions Gate Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, for films and TV rights.
The US streaming giant who already has separate relationships with consumer electronics makers, LG, Panasonic as well as Samsung, is set move into Australia in the near future in a move that could well hurt Apple, Telstra and Fetch TV – all companies that are currently offering content here.
Samsung have also signed up MTV content to create an app based on music and video an artist information for its Galaxy smartphones and Galaxy Tabs, known as Music Meter.
