24i Media acquires Mautilus

24i acquires Vigour to accelerate innovation and growth in OTT multiscreen solutions

The companies’ combined capabilities will create greater value for customers and set the pace in a fast-evolving industry

  Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 28, 2018: 24i Media, an industry-leading streaming applications developer for the world’s top media companies, today announced that it has acquired Vigour, a leading multiscreen video platform provider. The acquisition further enhances 24i’s leadership position globally and accelerates its innovation and growth, with its technology platform at the heart of its ambitions. Dutch video technology providers 24i and Vigour have joined forces to build a powerful, innovation driven partnership within the global market that will develop foundational multiscreen solutions to meet the evolving needs of today’s digital subscribers. With the acquisition of Vigour, 24i executes on its vision to drive innovation for video application technology, grow its international market share and build the most talented team in the industry. For Vigour, the acquisition provides an opportunity to expand the reach of its unique multiscreen vision across a much larger network, within an environment that provides the optimal operational conditions for the execution of a shared vision. “Reaching consumers regardless of the devices they use is crucial in securing their long-term business. The more devices they use, the more hours of content they will consume, and the more value they will gain from their subscription. In pursuit of these goals, the rate of innovation has accelerated considerably over the last few years,” said Martijn Van Horssen, CEO at 24i Media. “Our acquisition of Vigour strengthens our ability to lead this innovation curve and provide attractive, cutting edge applications that empower our customers to deliver immersive experiences for their subscribers across any device.” [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54_KRdlfVd8&feature=youtu.be[/embed] 24i’s module-based technology framework allows broadcasters, operators and media companies to create and launch personalized streaming services on all screens, tailored to their needs. “Our platform is like a giant box of Lego, where customers can build their own apps with our state-of-the-art components, or they can purchase a fully completed package,” Martijn commented. “This is a tremendous step forward for 24i and our growth as a company. Bringing together our two companies ties directly to 24i’s strategy to deliver valuable outcomes to our customers and to extend our leadership in the rapidly expanding market for personalized cloud TV and video app technology. Together, our strong engineering talent, leading technology and deep video app expertise will unlock incredible innovation, choice and value for customers around the world. We warmly welcome the Vigour team and its leading technology expertise to 24i.” Martijn added. "At Vigour we have always worked from vision and content," said Ramon Duivenvoorden, CEO at Vigour Duivenvoorden. "We are enormously driven by innovation to push the boundaries in the way we deal with technology and media in our daily lives. The acquisition by 24i offers us the opportunity to pursue this shared vision together with much more power, resources and scope." The acquisition will result in a unique combination of Vigour’s innovation, design, and engineering expertise with 24i’s industry knowledge, platform and full range of solutions and technology. The combination will enable the creation of an integrated set of flexible products for creating cross-screen, personalized Internet TV applications, better positioning 24i to help companies rapidly develop OTT business models and capture new revenue streams in the high-growth and fast evolving market. Together with newly acquired Vigour, 24i will be showcasing their feature rich set of TV applications at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, booth SU9301CM, April 9-12. Visitors are welcome to drop by the booth or book a meeting to discover how they can leverage 24i’s next generation tools and technologies to stand out from competitors and capitalize on 24i’s flexible and proven solutions.

24i Media realizes strong growth globally

Revenue grows 70% in 2017, profitably topping $5M Amsterdam (The Netherlands), March 15th, 2017 – 24i Media, an industry-leading Internet TV app developer for the world’s top media companies, today announced yet another year of record growth. The success in 2017 has been driven by signing up more than 20 new customers, including leading brands such as Tennis Channel, Entel, EdgeTV and RTÉ 2017 was a strong year for 24i Media, both in terms of growth in new customers and new partners, but also in staff and revenue, with a whopping 70% growth. This powerful momentum will continue in 2018, as the company is taking new strategic initiatives to bolster its technology innovation and global growth. “The acquisition of the Siemens CVC front-end team to support the increasing demands for our services is a big success and saw its full value in 2017. The team is now fully integrated into 24i and we’re looking forward to significantly expand our team in 2018,” said Hans Disch, Chief Strategy Officer at 24i. “With the new strategic initiatives and opportunities that we’re working on, we’ll continue to combine our very strong autonomous growth with targeted acquisitions, to be better equipped than ever to take the front-seat in technology innovation in the OTT industry.” Underscoring demand for its flexible and proven technology, Amsterdam based 24i has witnessed a 282% revenue growth over the last three years. In 2017 the company grew with about 70%. With this growth 24i also secured a spot on the prestigious Inc.5000 list of the fastest growing companies in EMEA in 2017. The list, seen as a ‘celebration of innovation’ and a distinguished ‘network of entrepreneurial leaders’, honors private companies that have achieved significant overall staff and revenue growth over a three-year period. “Making the Inc.5000 list is a testament to 24i’s ability to innovate and introduce new solutions to a market that is constantly evolving at an unbelievable pace. I am thrilled and proud of the 24i Team which has grown in leaps and bounds in talent and has continued to provide unparalleled service to our ever-increasing number of forward-thinking clients across the globe," said Martijn Van Horssen, 24i’s Chief Executive Officer. “We feel great about our set up for 2018 and our ability to continue delivering record-setting results and our plans and ambitions to keep surprising the industry with technology innovation.” The company also significantly expanded its client base across both broadcasters, media companies and operators, including signing recognized corporates and brands, such as Sinclair Broadcasting Group, NPO, RTE, Entel, Globo and the Tennis Channel. 24i strengthened its position in all geographic markets, especially EMEA, North America and Latin America. 24i Media’s growth continues to be fueled by strong market demand for their proven technology framework for the development and deployment of leading Internet TV app solutions. Meet 24i Media at NAB, booth SU9301CM

RTÉ announces plans to develop the next generation RTÉ Player

RTÉ today announced its plans to develop the next generation RTÉ Player, Ireland’s number one broadcaster video-on-demand service. It is expected that the new service will be launched before the end of the year. The redeveloped RTÉ Player will be RTÉ’s multi-channel television and video platform, designed and re-imagined for how Irish audiences watch television and video content online. It will be a world-class online television and video destination that seamlessly blends the audience content needs across live and on-demand with a curated, personalised service, with new features and functionality. The new RTÉ Player experience will be a gateway into a world of great content, from box-sets and curated on-demand libraries across 10 genres, to exciting new original RTÉ Player shorts, as well as the ability to enjoy RTÉ’s live channels on any screen. Delivering a multi-platform experience, the redeveloped RTÉ Player will be available across web, iOS, Android, connected TVs and OTT services, including Saorview, Chromecast, Android TV and Apple TV. RTÉ’s lead partner for the delivery of the project is Fincons Group. The global IT Business Consulting company has over 30 years’ experience as a broadband and broadcast service partner and has worked with many leading companies including Sky and the largest Italian commercial broadcaster, Mediaset, as consultant and integration partner for their video solutions and OTT platform rollouts. RTÉ and Fincons Group will also work with the Dutch-based TV app development company 24i, an internet TV app company, which powers apps for leading brands like Viacom, Fuse media and Sinclair. Discovery and personalisation provider ContentWise will integrate its content personalisation solution. RTÉ Player will benefit from the combination of Fincons Group’s design and integration, 24i’s unified UI front-end expertise and ContentWise’s user experience automation capabilities. Múirne Laffan, RTÉ’s Chief Digital Officer, said: “The delivery of the next generation RTÉ Player is hugely important for RTÉ’s future. It is a sophisticated proposition that will position us to meet evolving audience expectations and compete within a highly competitive, globalised media environment.” Aoife Byrne, Director of Content & Products for RTÉ’s digital division, said: “In order to meet the changing needs of our audiences, we are transforming RTÉ Player from being a pure catch-up TV service to being a world-class live and on-demand online TV and video platform. Irish audiences will continue to be able to catch up on their favourite show, but with the next-generation RTÉ Player we will soon be offering so much more: on-demand libraries with hundreds of great titles from across the genres; great box-sets to binge on, and brand new short-form content, exclusive to RTÉ Player. Audiences will also be able to enjoy RTÉ’s television channels live, on any screen.” “As well as delivering on our audience’s content needs, we want next-generation RTÉ Player to deliver a superb streaming experience. To achieve this, we are working with our delivery partners Fincons Group, 24i and ContentWise who are hugely experienced in delivering world-class online TV and video platforms. We are rebuilding the product from the ground up to ensure technical reliability, and we will also be adding some great new features and functionality such as live restart and autoplay to make watching great TV and video even better” added Aoife Byrne. Michele Moretti, CEO at Fincons Group, commented: “We are delighted to be bringing our tailored solutions and wealth of experience to support such a key strategic project for a national media like RTÉ,designing and integrating a future-proof OTT solution which will efficiently provide a seamless and compelling multiscreen user experience. Building on our extensive experience working with the major international players, this project further confirms our footprint in the media and broadcast sector.” ENDS For reference, please contact: Marika MacCarvill, Communications Manager, RTÉ Digital Tel: 00 353 1 208 4665 / 00 353 86 171 2568 About RTÉ Player: RTÉ Player is Ireland’s number-one broadcaster video-on-demand service, continuing to attract record-level audiences. Last month (March 2017) was the strongest month ever for RTÉ Player, attracting its highest level of viewers for any month to date, serving over 5.3 million streams and attracting over 2.1 million unique browsers. January and February this year were also the strongest on record for their respective months. In 2016, RTÉ Player attracted its highest level of audiences, serving over 50 million streams, which represents an additional 10 million streams or 26% increase on 2015. In 2016, the popular online service delivered an average of 4.2 million streams per month, and an average of 1.7 million unique browsers per month, with both figures up 30% on the previous year. Signifying changing viewing habits, live viewing on RTÉ Player was up by 74% on 2015 volumes, with 20% of monthly streams being live in 2016. Of the 2 million streams served for Euro 2016, 1.5 million streams were live. RTÉ Player’s offering continued to evolve in 2016, moving away from being a purely catch-up service, with the commissioning of more online-exclusive content and extra content around some the most popular RTÉ Television series and events of the year, as well as the addition of new permanent content hubs, including Doc Hub, Food Hub and Arts Hub. Together the online extras and exclusive shorts on RTÉ Player attracted over 3 million streams.