New ‘Lost’ season streamed online for free in Spain using Flumotion Technology

For the first time and right after airing on television, viewers in Spain will be able to legally enjoy ‘Lost’ online with Flumotion powered WebTV ‘play cuatro’.

European streaming specialists Flumotion, along with Spanish broadcaster ‘Cuatro’ are pleased to announce the new season of ‘Lost’ in Spain. The hugely anticipated television event will take place on Tuesday the 9^th February, with the season premier broadcasting at 10:15pm (CET) and streamed online right after via ‘play cuatro’. ‘Lost’ fans in Spain will be among the first in Europe to watch season six online legally for free, as watching the show in a number of other European countries including France and Germany requires paying a fee. Thanks to Flumotion Streaming Technology, viewers will also be able to enjoy the show on demand, both in Spanish and original English language versions.

American television shows do not reach Europe until 6 months to a year after premiering stateside, due to lengthy processes such as language dubbing and licensing agreements. For the first time in Spain, this delay has been drastically reduced to seven days. “Broadcasting the new season of ‘Lost’ on television as well as streaming it online is an important step for multimedia distribution”, says Florence Conti, Multimedia Director at Cuatro. “With the premier of ‘Lost’ in our two most important channels – TV and Internet – we reach a 100% of our audience, while offering our advertising clients an innovative advertising model in a state-of-the-art multimedia environment”, explains Conti.

“Flumotion Streaming Platform and WebTV cover the entire streaming value chain, from signal acquisition to customised design, providing viewers with innovative features and cutting edge user experience”, comments Jean Noel Saunier, CEO of Flumotion. “The unique user experience results in higher advertising revenues, increased viewership and frequency as well as creating communities and loyalty around the content and brand. This way we maximise our clients’ streaming ROI,” explains Saunier.

Flumotion WebTV includes a next-generation Media BackOffice, which enables publication, distribution, syndication and monetisation of video content on the Internet. The advanced advertising module includes a wide range of rich media advertising options within the player such as pre-roll, ticker, overlay, picture-in-picture, watermark and many more. This makes campaign planning easy and intuitive, and allows for seamless integration with 3^rd party ad servers.

After ‘Heroes’, ‘Lost’ was the most illegally downloaded TV show of 2009. According to Torrent Freak, over half of all Torrent downloads are TV shows, and in some cases illegal downloads surpass actual television viewing figures. Last year ‘Lost’ racked up a massive 6.3 million illegal downloads, just over half of the 11 million viewers that watched the show on US television. The majority came from countries, where the shows had not aired. Accelerating the online delivery of ‘Lost’ in Spain and to other non-English-speaking territories reduces the appeal of illegal downloading and helps recuperate advertising revenue.