Australia’s Foxtel launches Netflix experience

Foxtel is overhauling its user-experience and has launched Netflix for the first time on its set top boxes. 

The new Foxtel experience promises to bring more on-demand content than ever offered before with complete box sets and a simplified user interface (UI) with personalised recommendations for customers based on their viewing history.

Integration of app-based streaming services will start with Netflix, the world’s largest video on-demand streaming service.

SBS on-demand will also arrive as part of the New Foxtel Experience in the coming months.

The company announced the introduction of a sleek new Foxtel remote featuring a home button and a Netflix button, making Foxtel and Netflix seamlessly integrated into the UI.

Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany said: “We want our customers to have the best of TV and on-demand in Australia all in one place. With our new user interface, accessing Foxtel’s 16,000 hours of TV and on-demand, content is as simple for customers as one-click on the home button of their existing remote control.

“I can’t think of a better streaming partner to kick off the new Foxtel experience than Netflix.

“The new customer interface puts two entertainment powerhouses together providing Foxtel customers with access to Netflix service alongside our Foxtel Originals and programs from HBO, FX, the BBC and more.

“More than 1.1 million iQ3 and iQ4 set top boxes are already installed in our customers’ homes. Starting today, The New Foxtel Experience simplifies the way iQ4 users can enjoy Foxtel’s incredible range of drama, sport and movies as well as the best of video on demand, with the experience coming to iQ3 users coming shortly after.

“So whether customers crave Wentworth or Orange is the New Black; Lambs of God or Stranger Things; Big Little Lies or The Crown, they will find it, and more, on Foxtel.”

According to Business Insider, the News Corp-owned Foxtel has been struggling in recent years, and researcher Roy Morgan has indicated the growing popularity of Netflix in Australia is part of the reason.

In a statement pre-empting the deal, Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said: “The proliferation of cheap streaming video services led by Netflix in recent years has provided the biggest challenge yet to Foxtel’s traditional business model.”

Some, five million Australians have a household subscription to Foxtel and will now be able to access Netflix content via the Foxtel box.

That access to Netflix is free for the first six months, but only if re-contracted for 12 months before September 2019 and have a package that costs more than $49 per month.

Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany told a press conference in Sydney today that the US streaming service’s content will be “seamlessly integrated” and accessible via a newfangled remote control with a Netflix button.

Customers will also gain access to 16,000 hours of on-demand content, which includes Netflix content. 

Foxtel customers with version iQ4 will begin gaining access to the new features immediately, with the rollout expected to be completed in August, according to a statement from Foxtel. Subscribers who have the previous iQ3 version will gain access between September and November.

The news comes after the Australian public broadcaster sought to cut its payments to pay-TV provider Foxtel in a move to recoup its finances after the Coalition government froze its $1 billion annual budget.

The negotiations with Foxtel to end its yearly $4 million deal would stop Australian viewers being able to watch the public broadcaster’s content on the platform.

• Read more ABC boss plans to terminate $4m Foxtel deal