Commercial broadcaster Seven, rights partner of the Australian Open in its home country, has unveiled plans for a “pioneering freemium” OTT service to enhance its coverage of the 2017 edition of the grand slam tennis tournament.
The new offering will come as part of a full update of its 7Tennis service for the Australian Open Series that includes the Fast 4, Hopman Cup, Brisbane International, Sydney International and Kooyong Classic events, along with the main tournament in Melbourne.
The cornerstone for Seven’s expanding coverage will be the updated 7Tennis mobile app with over 2,000 hours of live, exclusive and free tennis, catch-up and on-demand short-form highlights.
Seven will introduce for the first ever time a freemium offering of the Australian Open allowing tennis fans to enhance their viewing with more than 600 matches to live stream in HD, select long-form full match replays and less commercial content for a single transaction fee of A$9.99 (€7/$7.5) in the app stores.
Clive Dickens, Seven’s chief digital officer, said: “We have listened to our audience and not only do they think all Australian sport should be free but they also told us they would be willing to pay for additional features like HD streaming, extra content and less commercials. The 7Tennis product is another first to market innovation for Seven that we can’t wait to share with the fans.”