Vodafone adds Facebook Watch to set-top box platform

Vodafone is to add Facebook Watch to Vodafone TV in Europe, becoming the first pay-TV operator in the region to offer the service on its set-top boxes. Vodafone TV is one of Europe’s biggest and most successful digital TV platforms, currently offering a cloud-based television service to 22 million customers across 10 markets, and seamlessly combining a wide variety of live and on-demand video content in a single, easy-to-use platform.

Facebook Watch will enable Vodafone TV subscribers to discover and connect with the videos they love, opening up one of the world’s largest libraries of scripted and unscripted content, sourced from a diverse ecosystem of partners, publishers and individual creators, including national broadcasters. Programming ranges from news and entertainment, and from gaming to live events, along with content generated by celebrities and influencers. Through Facebook Watch sports fans can also access live and on-demand content from select major competitions, as well as from their favorite teams and players.

Vodafone TV subscribers will also be able to access material from Facebook Originals, such as the chat show Red Table Talk, reality series Peace Of Mind With Taraji, and Humans Of New York: The Series, the television incarnation of the acclaimed photo blog. Facebook Originals content available to Vodafone TV customers will also include material in German, Italian, Spanish and other languages.

Local language user-generated content is also easy to find on the platform in each national market. Facebook Watch also provides a portal for Vodafone customers to see what their friends are up to, connecting viewers to the video stories their Facebook connections are posting.

“Vodafone is committed to providing its 22 million television customers across Europe with the widest array of exciting, entertaining and engaging content, and now we’re enabling them to connect to the videos they love to watch via the Facebook platform,” says Alex Froment-Curtil, Group Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone. “I’m really excited that as one of Europe’s leading video content platforms, Vodafone is expanding its rich and diverse array of TV programming further with Facebook Watch”.

Facebook Watch will be available to Vodafone TV subscribers from next month in Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Portugal and Greece. Other European markets will be announced in due course. Subscribers will be able to access the service via their Vodafone set-top box. BCS Bureau