Streaming + Downloading

The Brief
A cloud-based distribution company delivering vintage movies and family television to consumers wanted to improve its funding position and build studio revenues and relationships. The company brought FanTrust onboard to help guide its executive leadership and board through this advancement, with the aim of securing a significant strategic investment and building its distribution library.

The Solution
FanTrust performed an extensive overhaul of the client’s sales and investor strategies and collateral, including improvements to the company’s:

• Sales value propositions
• Customer fundamentals, requirements and expectations
• Investor presentations
• Competitive intelligence
• Market positioning and roadmap
• Brand identity
• Website and social media (business-to-business and business-to-consumer)

The Results
In less than six months, our client attracted new investment, strategic partnership and studio opportunities to transform its business for years to come.

RTL, the European broadcaster, has bought a 51 per cent stake in online video company BroadbandTV, mirroring similar recent deals by Time Warner and Comcast Ventures as media companies seek to gain a foothold in fast growing platforms such as YouTube.

BroadbandTV is the fifth largest “multi-channel network” on YouTube managing more than 7,800 channels that attract 800m video views a month. The company specialises in pooling together video content and generating revenue from it through online advertising.

The deal, which cost RTL $36m, marks the first move by a non-US broadcaster into such online multi-channel networks.

Shahrzad Rafati, founder and chief executive of BroadbandTV, said: “In addition to the competitive advantage for BroadbandTV, our customers and partners will benefit greatly from RTL Group’s global reach, advertising sales and expertise in producing amazing content.”

Following the investment, RTL will appoint three members to the board of BroadbandTV. RTL will also explore opportunities in the development of original content as part of the deal.

This is an excerpt. Click here to read the full article by Robert Budden in The Financial Times.

The Vancouver Sun reports the deal among the top 4 private investments in Western Canada’s tech sector. “The agreement will see both companies continue to operate independently, although RTL will add three members to BroadbandTV’s board of directors. In addition, the deal may see BroadbandTV venture into the realm of traditional TV as it helps RTL expand into digital territory.”

FanTrust president Catherine Warren has served as an advisor to BroadbandTV since its start-up phase and through this global growth.

Vuze, the acclaimed and highly popular peer-to-peer desktop application contracted FanTrust to source leading long-form content for its growing audience and changing business model. FanTrust’s work specifically focused on the rapidly evolving market for Canadian content acquisitions and deal-making.

With over 200 million downloads, Vuze partnered with Hollywood studios and over 150 content providers to spearhead entertainment distribution and marketing over peer-2-peer networks.