Magine outlines expansion plans

Cloud-based TV operator Magine is set for a full launch in Germany by late summer, and is looking to roll out a la carte pricing and add more niche stations to its channel lineup.

Speaking to DTVE, Magine co-founder and CEO Matthias Hjelmstedt said the full German launch would come ahead of further deployments, with the Sweden-based service having launched in Germany beta in June and gone live in Spain this month.

Speaking about other plans for the service, Hjelmstedt said that on top of its core channel offering, Magine has plans to start offering additional channels or bundles at additional cost.

“Having a base offering is very important, because it makes the selection very easy for users. But on top of that, or at the side of that, we will offer full a la carte in the future,” he said.

Hjelmstedt added that it was looking to add more niche channels, following the launch of Horse and Country TV on the service in Sweden.

“In the regular cable, terrestrial, or even satellite world, the amount of channels that you can carry [is decided] by the frequencies you are able to have, which means that you are always limiting yourself and your customers in what content they will be able to see. We don’t have that problem, so we have the possibility to add in a lot of channels that have a very hard time getting distribution, but have very good, niche target groups,” said Hjelmstedt.

“In a couple of months time I think that there will be a lot of channels in Magine that you actually can’t access through your regular [TV] subscription – also transnational channels. So in the longrun, the Magine offering will be much better than you can expect from a regular subscription.”

Magine offers live and on-demand TV, delivered over the web to any device, for a monthly subscription.