The deal will bring factual and entertainment content from Channel 5 and original British comedies from Comedy Central UK to the platform. Boxsets from Channel 5 will also appear on BritBox following a 30-day catch-up window on the My5 service.

“Under Viacom’s ownership we have significantly increased Channel 5’s investment in original UK content and we’re delighted to bring our popular homegrown content to an even wider audience through BritBox, alongside a selection of Comedy Central’s much-loved UK programming,” said Arran Tindall, senior vice president of commercial & content distribution at Viacom International Media Networks.

The Channel 5 and Comedy Central portfolios will be added to a line-up already set to include Victoria, Happy Valley, Broadchurch, Les Miserables, Downtown Abbey, Love Island, Famalam, Cleaning Up, Gentleman Jack, Gavin & Stacey, The Office, Benidorm, and more. Access to all programming will cost £5.99 per month in HD and across multiple screens and devices.

The BBC and ITV first confirmed their plans to launch BritBox in the UK in February this year, after launching the platform in the US & Canada in 2017. The BritBox UK launch comes some 12 years after the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 first put forward plans to launch a British TV-focused video on-demand service – only to see the UK’s Competition Commission block them from doing so two years later in 2009.

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Viacom has officially become the first media partner of T-Mobile’s upcoming TV service. The two companies struck a deal focused on “significant content distribution”, which will enable T-Mobile to include MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount and other Viacom brands on future mobile video services.

“Viacom represents the best of the best, most-popular brands on cable, so they are an amazing partner for us!” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “TV programming has never been better, but consumers are fed up with rising costs, hidden fees, lousy customer service, non-stop BS. And Macgyvering together a bunch of subscriptions, apps and dongles isn’t much better. That’s why T-Mobile is on a mission to give consumers a better way to watch what they want, when they want.”

The partnership between Viacom and T-Mobile comes a year after the service provider bought cable TV distributor Layer3 TV. By working with both Viacom and Layer3TV, T-Mobile has the content and distribution tools to launch its highly anticipated streaming service. The service is expected to include both live TV streaming and on-demand videos.

“We are thrilled to join forces with T-Mobile on a new entertainment service that represents an important evolution in how audiences consume our content,” said Bob Bakish, Viacom president and CEO. “Today’s landmark announcement marks a major step forward in our strategy to accelerate the presence of our brands on mobile and other next-generation platforms, and we’re so excited to partner with T-Mobile to provide millions of subscribers with access to our networks and more choice in a new service that will be unlike any other in the market.”

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The app, called ‘MTV Play’, features catch-up and box set content from popular shows including Catfish, Geordie Shore, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, The Hills, and more. In addition, there are short-form digital original series including Show Us Ur Phone, What the Yuck, and MTV Meets, as well as a live feed of MTV’s linear TV channel. It is initially only available on the App Store and Google Play in the UK for £3.99 a month, following a free 30-day trial.

“Our major distribution partners such as Sky, Virgin Media and BT do an excellent job of bringing MTV to younger audiences across the UK, but we know there is a segment of younger potential MTV fans who sit beyond the basic pay TV bundles,” said Arran Tindall, SVP of commercial and content distribution at Viacom International Media Networks. “MTV Play puts the full MTV content experience directly into the hands of young people for the first time in a way that is accessible and affordable.”

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US media giant Viacom has agreed to acquire WhoSay, an influencer marketing company, in a bid boost its capabilities across advertising, marketing, and digital content. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

The acquisition will see Viacom’s content engine, audience, and advertising tool combined with WhoSay’s ‘ability to seamlessly match brand objectives with talent and creative’.

 “We’re excited about a deeper integration with WhoSay and the strength of our combined capabilities,” said Sean Moran, head of marketing & partner solutions at Viacom. “This partnership will add to our linear, digital and mobile arsenal by bringing us further into the world of social media and shopper marketing. Together, we will offer brand partners unparalleled creative solutions that maximize the power of storytelling, influencer reach, omnichannel distribution and advanced advertising tools to create quality campaigns that drive results.”

Viacom and WhoSay have previously worked on more than 50 campaigns together – with the influencer platform executing campaigns for MTV, BET, and other Viacom brands over the past two years. These campaigns have featured the likes of Lil Yachty, LeToya Luckett, and Kegan Allen.

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The Viacom-owned TV networks Comedy Central and MTV already advertise on Snapchat through its Discover channels. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new deal will see the two companies working together more closely, with Viacom granted exclusive third-party rights to directly sell advertising on Snapchats various ad-supported areas, including its Live Stories feature.

In addition, Viacom will add two new channels to the Discover page, with Comedy Central, which currently only operates as a US channel on the service, expanding internationally, and the international-only MTV channel getting a US version. Viacom has said it will invest further in making programming geared towards Snapchat.

“We had early on made a big commitment to developing premium, original content for the channels we had on the platform,” said Wade Davis, chief financial officer for Viacom. “Based on the success we had, we started talking about what we could do beyond that.”

Philippe Dauman, who succeeded ailing majority shareholder Sumner Redstone as CEO of Viacom last week, has been extremely hands-on in the companys involvement with the picture messaging service, meeting with Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel and even reportedly weighing in on the colour of Comedy Centrals icon on the Snapchat Discover page. His promotion to CEO suggests that the two companies could be involved for a long while.

For Viacom, Snapchat provides access to the crucial millennial demographic that many of its properties are aimed at, and given Snapchats seeming reticence to adopt too much advertising, places the firm in a powerful position going forward.

For Snapchat, while the company plans to continue to sell most of its own ad inventory, chief strategy officer Imran Khan has said that the Viacom deal “reduces friction” and will enable large brands to buy Snapchat ads as part of a larger TV deal made with Viacom. It also provides the fledgling company with a more experienced partner in the advertising world.

“We identified early on the similarities in our audience with Snapchat as they were starting out,” said Jeff Lucas, ad sales chief at Viacom. “They realised early on about our access to the ad market in terms of selling against millennials.”

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The video and digital music apps will be offered to operators as part of exclusive brand licensing agreements that aim to transform operator services aimed at the sought-after millennial demographic.

With 41 per cent of 16 to 24-year olds regularly watching TV shows on mobile devices and most younger mobile users listing their smartphone as their preferred listening device for music, young users are a key target for mobile marketers.

The MTV Play service has been developed in partnership with multi-screen platform developer Vigour and is compatible with iOS, Android and Windows. It enables consumers to flick content from their smartphone to other connected screens, such as tablets or smart TVs.

The service launches on 5 March with mobile network partners in Germany, Switzerland and Romania, with subscribers to MTV Mobile-branded tariffs with these operators getting free access to more than 1,500 hours of MTV video content, while other consumers can also subscribe for €2.99 (£2.19) per month.

MTV Trax is an OTT mobile digital music service, tailored for pre-pay customers and casual music fans who dont wish to pay out for unlimited services. It offers consumers a curated music experience of the 100 hottest tracks, which are downloaded to smartphones and updated daily, enabling users to listen offline.

“MTV is one of the hottest entertainment brands in the minds of 16 to 24-year-old mobile users, with the majority of online engagement with the MTV brand now coming through mobile devices,” said Bob Bakish, president and CEO of Viacom International Media Networks, MTVs parent company. “Todays launch of the MTV Play and MTV Trax apps offers operators an enormous opportunity to differentiate themselves and reward consumer loyalty by offering greater value through premium branded content and services targeting young customers who arent currently subscribing to pay TV.”

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Brands will now be able to buy advertising across ITVs traditional TV slots, as well as on Twitter, where they can promote in-tweet media like photos, videos and TV clips. ITV is also offering pre- and post-roll placements on videos, customised hashtags, in-video banners and promotional video tweets.

Twitter Amplify was trialled for the first time on ITV during the BRIT Awards in an exclusive brand partnership with V05. The #VO5music hashtag received 5,332 Twitter mentions during the event. Twitters Amplify programme in EMEA is being led by Theo Luke, who was previously head of digital for Simon Cowells Syco Entertainment.

Viacom is likewise rollling out Twitter Amplify in the UK following a successful trial at the MTV Music Awards in August.

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And much like any self-respecting TV exec in 2013, Philip OFerrall, senior VP at Viacom, says mobile and social, and where those two beasts meet in the living room, have been front of mind during a busy year. “The heartlands of our audience – kids and families and youth and music – are definitely doing mobile so we have to be there and there in a big way,” O’Ferrall told Mobile Marketing. “And we also know social is now as much about mobile access as it is fixed – so the way we produce our social media content has also been very mobile-focussed too.”

MTV is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the organisations most social brand and one of the key events in the calendar is the European Music Awards, which in 2013 saw a live test of Twitters Amplify second-screen marketing product. Viacom used the platform to promote near-real-time sponsored video highlights from the show to increase both viewing and voting across mobile and desktop. MTV saw its best ever results for votes, visitors, video views and social activity – which was up 624 per cent year-on-year – no doubt cementing social in the hearts and minds of Viacoms executives, as well as those from partner advertisers like Unilever and Pepsi.

MTV mobile tariff 

The company took another interesting mobile turn with its youth audience this year, announcing the launch of a branded MTV mobile tariff in Europe. Only under-30s can sign up but they can continue to pay the same for their contract after they’ve passed the dreaded milestone.

“Why would we launch something like this?” O’Ferrall asks. “MTV has a very specific ability to grow a youth audience.” But, he also explains, there’s also a ‘customer retention and activation element that comes as part of the package, an app called UTT, that offers MTV mobile contract subscribers full access to its TV shows. “Viacom is principally a paid TV business and this all drives back to linear TV viewing,” he said.

“Although it might be a bit of a surprise, mobile has also been a massive growth area in our kids and family group”, said OFerrall. The Nick app, which has recently launched in the US and UK, has been a testing ground for short form, shareable edutainment content created specifically for mobile. The My Nick Jnr app, meanwhile, offers parents the ability to control the TV experience when they leave the house; they can press pause on their TV and then resume viewing on a mobile device. “This means the holy grail of our business – our content – is available on every device,” he said.

OTT Messenger Deals

Viacom owns some of the worlds most recognisable brands and has already made hardware licensing deals for characters like Sponge Bob in the tablet device market. Not to be accused of resting on its laurels, Viacom is also set to launch a whole new area of business next year, via deals with instant message app partners to deliver branded emoticons. OFerrall explains that this will enable it to make huge headway in the Asian markets, where many OTT app providers have hundreds of millions of active users.

Viacom used to have an area of business dedicated to emerging markets but O’Ferrall acknowledges that many of those groups have ‘now emerged’. The company had recent re-launches in Latin America – particularly Brazil – as well as Russia, where the company has seen ‘significant growth’. “Certainly mobile forms a part of that growth. Proliferation of devices is a big benefit to us,” O’Ferrall said.

“But our real growth area from a marketing perspective is brand partnerships, where we can offer an immersive experience for brand partners on every device that goes well beyond display or pre-roll. We work with them hand in hand to create an experience that is great for their audience and ours.”

No mobile-only ads

While consumer bevahiour is pushing some of these branded experiences onto mobile, O’Ferrall says Viacom won’t be placing too much importance on advertising here. “If the context is right, any advertising asset works but we wouldn’t do pure mobile or pure online campaigns. We combine a really great mobile experience with a really great TV creative to drive people there.”

He is keen to highlight that the paid-for TV business, Viacoms bread and butter, is still ‘extremely strong and growing’. But, while the company still makes a large share of its revenue from affiliate deals with the likes of Netflix and Sky, as well as its TV ad spots, Viacom’s CEO Philippe Dauman has not ruled out the launch of its own paid-for streaming service in 2014. “There has been a lot of growth in the non-linear world this year and that is clearly a focus, driving people between different devices and to TV,” O’Ferrall said.

“We have a pretty significant amount of tech staff in house covering our innovation labs and media tech services group, as well as mobile specialists and social media specialists. Were not what you would call a traditional broadcaster; we know media owners and publishers have to be at the forefront of technology.”

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