Quickline launches national OTT TV service in Switzerland

Swiss cable group Quickline is launching a national free OTT TV service, including ad-free replay TV functionality.

Quickline said it was the only service provider in Switzerland to provide a free TV product that included ad-free replay TV functionality. The company said it planned to use the service to gain additional market share.

The Quickline TV Air Free service will include 130 free TV channels, the MySports HD channel developed by Liberty Global’s local unit and 30-hour replay functionality. It also provides 10 hours of cloud recording and the ability to sign up for up to 10 profiles across two devices.

Quickline TV Air Free will be available from the Quickline website from September 25 at the latest, the company said.

Nicloas Perrenoud, CEO of Quickline Group said that fewer and fewer people would watch classic TV in the future and that it was necessary for TV distributors to adapt and give consumers only the TV they wanted.

Yann Stoulet, managing director of Quickline’s residential business, said that the company was the first in Switzerland with clear ambitions in the OTT market.

Quickline already provides TV services to homes within its cable network footprint, and launched an advanced digital TV service in March this year. The company tapped SeaChange to provide its RDK-based platform for the service, and also used CDN technology from Broadpeak to deliver an OTT-like service to users.

Quickline, which aggregates 24 partner cable networks, had 380,700 TV customers as of June 30, up 6.9% year-on-year, making it the number three player in the Swiss market behind Swisscom and Liberty Global. The company had 177,900 broadband customers, up 17.3%, and 138,385 fixed telephony subscribers, up 34.6%.

The company posted revenues of CHF131 million for the first half, up 13.9%.