Austria proposes VOD coalition to take on Netflix

Director General of Austria’s public broadcaster ORF says he would like to see German public broadcasters and ABU members ZDF and ARD join its video-on-demand (VOD) portal to counter the launch of Netfilx in German-speaking Europe.

According to Broadband TV Europe, ORF’s Director General Alexander Wrabetz told German industry magazine promedia that he could well image distributing programmes from ARD and ZDF on the platform.”The German public broadcasters are in fact our most long-term and most reliable partners.” he said.

ORF wants to react to the trend towards non-linear online video consumption and secure a strategic position in this new, growing market, explained Wrabetz.

“In view of the rapid increase of competition through market giants like Apple, Netflix, Amazon and other players, you have to be prepared in time, even though our project doesn’t stand in direct competition against the large portals offering US movies and series, but will rather be a complementary gourmet shop,” Wrabets said.

“Nevertheless, we don’t want to wait for the market to be completely occupied and want to actively be involved in the currently developing universe of over-the-top video in Austria,” he added.