Red Bee Media to Provide Managed OTT Services for NLZIET in The Netherlands

Red Bee Media has been contracted to deliver Managed OTT services for live tv & video-on-demand platform NLZIET in the Netherlands, after successfully completing a proof of concept with live streams of the UEFA Champions League in May 2019. Services provided include transcoding, packaging and delivery of high-quality streams of live channels and catch-up content on the NLZIET platform. NLZIET is a monthly subscription service with aggregated content from 22 linear channels, created by Dutch public broadcaster NPO in cooperation with RTL and Talpa Network, two of the largest commercial broadcasters in the Netherlands.

Red Bee Media NLZIET

The proof-of-concept involved testing and demonstrating capabilities in delivering live and catch-up content to connected devices, as well as the ability to handle high numbers of simultaneous users. The successful tests included live streams of the UEFA Champions League in April and May 2019, where Red Bee Media delivered the content on a mix of platforms, including mobile devices and smart TV’s.

Going forward, Red Bee Media will be using their Channel Store solution, with access to over 10 000 linear sources, for content acquisition and their Managed OTT Services to deliver live content and 22 linear channels with 7 days catch-up.

Niels Baas, Managing Director, NLZIET says: “Red Bee Media offers a complete OTT solution, where innovation, scalability and a flexible service model have been decisive for our choice of service provider. With this collaboration, NLZIET and Red Bee Media are jointly delivering a flexible, scalable and innovative OTT platform, with which we can offer our subscribers an improved viewing experience.”

“We are very proud to be able to deliver and develop a next-generation streaming service to Dutch audiences together with NLZIET. Our ambition is to create the best possible viewing experience, with high-quality streams and the best live OTT service on the market” says Josbert van Rooijen, Head of Market Area Benelux, Central & Eastern Europe, Red Bee Media.

Red Bee Media and NLZIET will continue to develop the streaming service together, expanding volumes and increasing the service quality. With geo-blocking being lifted in the EU this spring, combined with the scalability of the Red Bee Media Managed OTT Services, NLZIET will be able to increase their viewership beyond the Dutch borders. In addition, following their recent advances in low latency live OTT, Red Bee Media will also be able to offer NLZIET live content from camera to screen at the fastest speed possible.

“Red Bee Media is investing considerable efforts in innovating in the OTT space, creating a highly flexible, scalable and qualitative managed services platform”, says David Travis, Chief Portfolio Officer, Video Services Red Bee Media. “We now have the capabilities to provide the highest quality services for OTT ventures of all sizes and ambitions.”

About NLZIET

NLZIET is a co-operation between the Dutch Public Broadcasting Union (NPO), RTL Nederland and Talpa TV. With the streaming tv-service NLZIET, viewers can watch a broad range of content from the three largest Dutch broadcasters in one place. By using the apps for web, mobile, Apple TV, Android TV, PlayStation 4 and smart TV the content of the broadcasters is streamed live, catch-up and on-demand, in high quality, mostly ad-free. The service is accessible through a monthly subscription.