Freely, the free streaming joint venture backed by major UK public service broadcasters marked its latest expansion this month, inking a deal to be the built-in, default streaming TV guide for next-gen smart TVs powered by the Roku OS in the market.
Under the deal, starting in June Freely will become integrated in new TVs using the Roku OS in the UK, making the free streaming service available on more smart TV models from Sharp, JVC and METZ, as well as Polaroid-branded TVs for the first time.
Freely launched in April 2024 after its initial announcement in 2023 and is distributed by the non-profit Everyone TV, which is a joint venture owned and supported by the UK’s leading public service broadcasters including BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Everyone TV also runs the UK’s earlier free-to-view TV platforms, Freeview and Freesat, reaching over 15 million UK households.
The Freely streaming service brings together both live linear content from all four of the broadcasters, as well as on-demand programming.
At the StreamTV Show in Denver, we sat down with Deep Halder, chief commercial officer of Everyone TV, to discuss the latest TVOS partner expansion and overall effort of Freely, as broadcasters seek a path forward to address consumers’ migration to streaming and increased competition from global streamers and others trying to gain status in Europe.
Freely expands coverage with Roku
Considering Freely launched just a little over a year ago, its expansion in the UK through OEM and TVOS partners to-date is notable, although Halder told StreamTV Insider the approach they’re taking to the rollout is “slow and steady and considerate.”
That means “the strategy is not that we churn out an app in a sea of apps and go everywhere on day one,” he said. “What we want is high quality distribution.”
It’s doing that by striking bespoke deals and integrations with every TVOS in the UK market, one by one.
It already has a significant number of partners under its belt. Aside from Roku, Freely’s TV distribution deals include Amazon Fire TVs, Bush, Hisense, JVC, METZ, Panasonic, Philips, Sharp, TCL, Titan OS, TiVO, Toshiba and VIDAA.
Roku is a leading streaming platform in North America, reaching over 90 million households. And while its TVOS is believed to have less of a stronghold in Europe (Roku launched in the UK in 2012 and is available in major retailers), Halder expects to boost Freely’s footprint and coverage with the deal.
“Until we announced the Roku deal, we had done deals which gives us [Freely] coverage of half of the [UK] market. With the Roku deal, it probably gives us coverage for about 60% of the market,” he told StreamTV Insider.
Halder suggested it’s only a matter of time before Everyone TV and Freely corners the remaining 40%, which he said mainly represents “a couple of large [TVOS] players that we’re in discussion” with.
For Roku, it adds must-watch local content to its TVOS offering in the UK, as the company is potentially poised to lose a separate partner in the US. This week The Desk reported that Walmart plans to replace the TVOS powering its Onn TV in-house brand smart TVs – currently provided by Roku – with a new generation debuting later this year powered by Vizio’s SmartCast OS, which the retailer acquired last year for $2.3 billion.
Integrated at the firmware level
As mentioned, what’s particularly notable about the deals Everyone TV strikes with device and TVOS partners is that Freely becomes more deeply integrated at the firmware level, serving as the default TV guide on all partner platforms.
That’s beyond simply securing distribution for an app that lives alongside many others on a smart TV home screen, and it’s distinct from the US where most TVOS players (including Roku) have built up and serve their own versions of built-in free streaming linear channel guides and on-demand content – also known as free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) services.
Halder described the strategy of rolling out Freely as sort of a “super app in every TV, where it controls a large of the UI experience when it comes to live TV” and primarily the guide, so that it’s a consistent consumer experience across all brands and TV operating systems.
This deeper firmware-level integration in each deal is key as Freely and UK broadcasters look to succeed in a much more competitive streaming age.
“If you don’t do that, how can we compete with the leaders like Netflix?” he explained. “That is fundamental to what Freely is.”
UK consumers expect and consume broadcast content
There are a few factors distinct about European markets, and the UK in particular, from the US that makes Freely’s vision and approach possible.
One reason Everyone TV’s able to do this for its broadcaster participants, according to Halder, is the fact that distribution of free-to-air broadcasting has traditionally been standardized across all TV platforms. Meaning, historically in the UK all TV manufacturers needed to include digital tuners in TV sets that met certain specifications so that it can receive all free over-the-air channels, standardized across all TV device and OS types. If a product didn’t have tuners certified it couldn’t be considered or sold as TV.
“Therefore, the UK consumer is used to having a live TV experience that is consistent across devices, no matter what TV [brand] you watch,” he explained.
Freely is now bringing those OTA channels to consumers through IP delivery that also enables features friendly to a streaming-first viewer, like the ability to pause or restart live TV content.
Also helping Freely's traction is the consumer expectation for and consumption of content from public service broadcasters in the UK.
Per Halder, on average, UK broadcasters and their content still hold roughly 50%+ of total TV viewing share, of highlighting the importance for consumers in the market. Second, although the content is “free” some of the public service broadcasters are taxpayer-funded, with consumers subsidizing a mandatory fee. So there’s “a default expectation,” according to Halder, that if one is buying a TV device, it will have those free-to-air channels and content available on it.
Without Freely integration on new smart TVs, he suspects near-term, TV makers would receive complaints for a lack of access to the public service broadcaster content and longer-term, “they will stop purchasing your TV.”
Another aspect working for Freely is collaboration between the four broadcasters. They’ve continued to come together as they navigate a world that Halder noted is getting highly fragmented on the one longer tail end, while also very consolidated by major players like Netflix and Amazon on the other.
“In order to compete and deliver a service that’s on par or better, you have to collaborate,” Halder said. “So collaboration is sort of at the heart of our DNA and the UK public service broadcasters.”
Collaboration is also a key aspect with TVOS partners like Roku and Amazon, which can launch their own channels into and make available on Freely, retaining 100% of all revenue generated minus onboarding costs.
Slow and steady cadence, potential for streaming sticks
As broadcasters seek to steer the shift of streaming, Halder reiterated a slow and steady cadence for Freely rollout, saying that about one-third of UK homes today use streaming or IP only to access and receive their content – the market Freely was meant to address – but it’s a trend that’s accelerating.
“With the launch of Freely, what the data shows is that the number of homes that want to watch only over IP is really accelerating,” he commented.
So much so to the point that UK regulators, government and broadcasters are contemplating if there’s a time in the near future, say around 2030, when traditional OTA broadcasting can be switched off and all broadcasting will be done over IP via Freely.
“That’s certainly a possibility in the future. But to make that future happen and to make it a seamless transition for viewers, that’s why we have Freely,” he said, to provide for this in-between times integration and future-proof the platform regardless of how users watch TV today or 10 years from now.
Although for some, the pace of Freely’s rollout might not be fast enough.
Older TVs can’t be retrofitted to integrate Freely, which is only rolling out on new generation TV models. However, even if Brits are ready to migrate to streaming not all are ready to upgrade their TVs yet and Halder did acknowledge a large part of user feedback on Freely is from those who want to access it but don’t have TVs that support the service.
To address that, Everyone TV is looking at integrating the service into streaming sticks or pucks, along with other solutions, for the part of the UK market that isn’t ready to buy a new TV but wants to cut the cord.
That’s also why it’s taking a step-by-step approach to adoption, to balance awareness with availability of access via smart TVs and keep UK viewers happy during the transition.
Challenging global competition with robust local content prop
Freely’s effort in the UK also comes as broadcasters face competition from global streamers that are eager to take a bite out of international market share.
However, when it comes to the viewing landscape in the UK, as well as other European markets, Halder emphasized that broadcasters’ “free-to-air content proposition… is quite robust.”
Broadcasters in the country are investing and have a strong legacy of delivering highly localized content that is relevant to the UK-specific audiences, particularly around news and entertainment shows that are produced in the UK with in-market casts and recognizable settings.
“These are settings every UK audience can resonate with. Whereas, when you see a global streamer making a show, to a large extent they need to drive economics of scale, so they are building a show which is sort of vanilla that can work everywhere,” Halder commented.
“That is, I think, the edge that all of the European and especially the UK broadcasters have - the content they produce are highly, highly relevant to the local market” he added.
And to reiterate, free-to-air broadcast still captures more than 50% of overall viewing in the market competing against everyone else, and through Freely is making the shift to streaming. Another telling data point the CCO shared is that in the UK market traditional “live free-to-air TV gets about 300 minutes a day of viewing on average per household, which is massive.” It’s a benchmark Freely aims to achieve and “we are almost there,” according to Halder, even after only being in the market for a relatively short time, although it’s still waiting for the data to prove itself out.
The executive also pointed out that SVOD giant Netflix’s yearly investment in localized UK content (which as of 2020 was $1 billion) is large yet still just one-fifth that of the UK broadcasters – citing £5 billion in annual investment for the latter. And not every streamer has pockets deep enough to invest $1 billion or more in localized content production (as Netflix recently announced for the market of Spain over the next four years), making solo entries a challenge for new players.
Even those with funds to funnel into local content are seeking to serve and gain traction in European markets through partnerships, including with established and legacy players like broadcasters. This was seen with Netflix’s landmark deal last week in France with broadcaster TF1 to distribute live linear channels in the market, marking a first for the SVOD giant.
The level of collaboration among major UK broadcasters on Freely is notable, although each is in control of their own data, ad inventory, monetization and revenue generation from the effort. And Freely isn’t only open to the public service UK broadcasters.
“We want to make sure Freely is a platform that both the UK broadcasters, as well as any other broadcasters who want to come play in the UK market in the traditional way, or now most in the streaming way, can participate in Freely and control their own destiny in terms of monetization,” Halder said.
The first phase for Freely is bringing all of the traditional partners involved in the Freeview service on board. As Freely grows, phase two will be about figuring out the right VOD content partners that want to play in the UK and is already in discussions with multiple content partners.
What Everyone TV is looking for are content partners “who are serious about growing ambitions for the UK market” and are focused on delivering a high-quality experience for local viewers, Halder said.
Still, Everyone TV’s threshold for bringing on content partners “is really high,” he added, in terms of quality, and meeting local regulators requirements for the UK market for how to create and deliver channels and how to optimize ad loads – all with the aim of ensuring the best experience for the UK viewer – which ultimately delivers the best outcomes for broadcasters as engagement increases.
It’s also worth noting that broadcasters struggling or attempting to navigate the shift to streaming is a challenge felt in other European markets as well. And others, while each with their own market nuances, may be keen to keep a close eye on Freely and evolution of the UK model.