The QYOU, a curator of internet video content for subscription-television services, has sealed a partnership with Dutch cable-television operator Ziggo.
Under the deal, The QYOU will deliver 225 episodes of varied short-form sports video content over the next two years, from 2016 to 2017.
The custom-designed ‘Q-Sport’ shows will be purpose-built for the new Ziggo Sport channel and will feature sports talent across surfing, football, BMX and motocross racing, skiing, skateboarding, basketball, the ‘parkour’ urban free-running activity, and more.
The Q-Sport episodes will be available in linear and catch-up format and will be available on the new Ziggo Sport channel this month. The channel launched in November and is available to all digital-television subscribers at no extra cost.
The deal represents The QYOU’s first commercial rollout of bespoke programming for a television operator.
“We know how popular sports content is, and are committed to making our dedicated channel entirely unique, filled with unique content,” Ziggo Sport general manager Will Moerer said. “We’ve seen that new diverse formats are contributing to renewed enthusiasm for sports content, and our deal with The QYOU allows us to bring our subscribers access to premium content ranging from big-league games to amazing footage of incredible sporting skill that is rarely seen on TV.”
Amory Schwartz, The QYOU’s EMEA executive vice-president of commercial, added: “The great appeal of short-form content is that it is an intensely exciting three to four minutes of someone doing something extraordinarily skilful or daring. It has a ‘wow factor’ and ‘snackability’ that is mesmerising to a broad audience. I think that’s the secret sauce for providers like Ziggo – the ability to programme to a broader audience, without the massive investment that’s associated with securing rights to top-shelf sports.
“At the heart of The QYOU’s ‘programming-as-a-service’ approach, is our ever-expanding library of rights-cleared, high definition – in many cases, 4K – content. With so much at our fingertips, we can get extremely local and granular when we build bespoke programmes.”