Samsung Australia is set to deliver thousands of Blockbuster movies to their new range of Smart TVs along with Samsung Galaxy devices spanning both smartphone and tablets after the Korean Company scored a global Company deal with Australia’s largest provider of rental movies.According to Paul Uniacke, the CEO of the Franchise Entertainment Group (who has the rights to the Blockbuster brand in Australia), “The Samsung deal is a brilliant deal” that will result in Australians having access to thousands of movies streamed direct to a Samsung device whether it’s a Blu ray player, Smart TV, smartphone or tablet.
It will also result in Blockbuster movies being available on Samsung notebooks and Ultrabooks.
According to Uniacke the deal is a win all round for Samsung, Blockbuster and Australian movie watchers.
Last week Blockbuster, which is now owned by Dish Networks in the US after the Company bought the brand out of Chapter 11, ditched TiVo in Australia.
TiVo’s Australian users have been told that the Blockbuster service, which has been running for 18 months, will shut on March 5. Account balances will be refunded, with the movie menu disappearing altogether.
According to Samsung sources the content deal with Blockbuster will not be announced until the second half of the year. Global Samsung plans to launch their Blockbuster offering in the USA, the UK and Europe in the first half of 2012 with the Australian region getting access to the content by as early as September.
SmartHouse has been told that Samsung is developing a global billing system that allows owners of their devices to “easily” log into content, pay for it and then “watch or listen to it”.
“The real estate of the future along with revenues belongs inside the screens that Samsung is delivering which is why the deal with Samsung is a great deal for us”.
