ARTE launches its new Web TV Portal ARTE+7 with CoreMedia

Hamburg, October 01, 2007 – The European cultural broadcaster ARTE is now offering a selection of its program on the Internet as free-to-view streaming video, with the videos staying online for seven days after the program has been broadcast. This new Web TV portal has been specially created at http://www.arte.tv/plus7, and is available to Internet users in Germany and France in their respective languages. ARTE+7 is based on content management technology from CoreMedia and the project was realized by CoreMedia’s long-standing partner Sybit.

With this project, ARTE has instantly extended its portfolio to include an additional channel and is making a decisive step in the direction of Web TV. ARTE’s already successful website is being expanded further in this direction, and popular programs like “Karambolage” or “GEO 360°” can be watched by viewers online with no time restrictions. CoreMedia has been working for the European broadcaster since 2004. Working with Sybit, video had already been incorporated into the website earlier – a service that was highly popular with ARTE viewers.

“In the multimedia age, it’s critical that ARTE has a wide variety of services on offer, over a large number of distribution channels,” points out Gottfried Langenstein, President of ARTE. “Examples of these services include ARTE+7, video on demand, podcasts and mobile services. With ARTE+7 we are offering a new, individually-tailored TV model, with which viewers can watch the programs as often as they wish to.”

Sören Stamer, co-founder and CEO of CoreMedia, continues: “The Internet is increasingly gaining in importance for broadcasters. Since viewers now have the choice, when and where they can view the programs, they are increasingly utilizing this medium. As a result, broadcasters can reach a new and far wider audience.”

Program notes are transferred automatically into the online media library using CoreMedia CMS, and then linked to editors’ commentaries and a program timetable. The workload for editors thus stays within reasonable bounds. In addition, broadcast rights, age restrictions and regional broadcast information (geolocation data) is stored for all programs on ARTE+7, meaning that only those programs are shown that can be legally broadcast.

ARTE+7 unites clarity in usability with intuitive and creative features. The navigation is a mix of classical navigation and “tag clouds”. Video selection is both simple and also fun to do: the user uses a sliding carousel selector, which plays a short preview of the program that is currently in the central position on the carousel. In this way, users can get an impression of the broadcast before they click on the video. Using people-centric™ content technology from CoreMedia, the new ARTE+7 portal is an exciting experience for viewers, not only in the viewing of video, but also in the user interface itself.