Powerful content discovery solutions require hundreds of video metadata sources to really be good, such as images, reviews, ratings, statistics, awards, cast, directors, schedule data and merchandising. Tying that into digital IPTV (News - Alert) and broadcast services can be a big differentiator for a pay-TV operator, and to that end, Australia’s Foxtel has selected Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery to provide metadata management in support of its subscription television services.

More specifically, Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery and Unified Data Service enables personalized search and recommendations features for content across live TV, time-shifted TV, premium channels and video-on-demand (VOD) across all connected devices. Typically, each metadata type is hidden in its own silo. Digitalsmiths Unified Data Service creates a single index where multiple video-related data sources are ingested, aggregated, reconciled and stored.

“Foxtel continues to pave the road with cutting-edge innovation, and our team is excited to partner with one of the world's leading subscription TV companies,” said Ben Weinberger (News - Alert), co-founder and CEO of Digitalsmiths. “Digitalsmiths' metadata management and personalized content discovery features provide Foxtel with the market-leading suite of products for the varying needs of its subscriber base. We look forward to being a key component in Foxtel's ongoing commitment to deliver the highest quality experiences to their subscribers.”

As TV Everywhere and second-screen usage becomes mainstream, pay-TV operators know that they need to connect consumers to content in far more effective ways than just through traditional programming grids. But this is particularly important in Oz: PriceWaterhouseCoopers last year predicted that 27 percent of Australians will have an IPTV service by 2016—an important penetration number considering that video subscriptions historically have never taken off in Australia. The country’s eight million or so households have so far only shown moderate adoption.

Existing penetration for subscription TV among Australian households is estimated at around 28 percent, according to PwC, including cable, satellite and IPTV.