Ericsson strikes raft of content deals for Nuvu SVOD platform

Thorsten Sauer

Ericsson has acquired over 2,500 hours of content through a raft of deals for the Nuvu subscription video-on-demand service it launched earlier year.

Ericsson has acquired content from a range of international distributors including Viacom – with content from BET and Nickelodeon – MGM, CBS, Al Jazeera, DHX Media and Mattel.

Titles acquired include Hawaii Five-O, Next Top Model, CSI: Miami, Being Mary Jane, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bob the Builder and Vikings along with premium Hollywood movies.

Ericsson has also licensed African content from suppliers including iRoko, Trace and Agwhyte International along with music videos from the 960 Music Group, which has signed well-known West African artists including P-Square, 2Baba and Yemi Alade.

Ericsson developed Nuvu as an end-to-end SVOD service for mobile operators in emerging markets, using Ericsson technologies including its Managed Player and components of its MediaFirst TV platform.

The technology giant first revealed details of the Nuvu service at the end of last year along with announcing an initial partnership with Airtel in Nigeria. The company’s goal was to market the service in collaboration with other service providers in emerging markets.

Nuvu is currently available as an Android app, and Ericsson has said it plans to extend the service to other paltfomrs and operating systems on an ongoing basis.

Thorsten Sauer, head of broadcast and media services, Ericsson, said: “We have spent a great deal of time working with distributors to source the very best and most relevant international and local content for our new SVOD service, Nuvu. We created Nuvu to help mobile operators in emerging markets to address a significant untapped market for video content. Africa has some of the highest mobile adoption rates globally and there is a high demand for quality content from consumers. We are proud to announce this slate of deals, which we believe will meet and exceed the expectations of Nuvu’s discerning audiences, and we look forward to announcing more content deals over the coming months.”