SBS On Demand relaunches with Netflix look and 4000 hours of content

SBS On Demand has relaunched with a new interface and 4000 hours of ad-supported free content.

A screen shot of the new interface of SBS On Demand which launches on June 29, 2015

SBS On Demand has relaunched with a fresh interface and 4000 hours of ad-supported free content including 600 movie titles.

The launch comes as the public broadcaster considers cuts to programming after the Senate last week voted against letting it recoup $28.5m in budget cuts by broadcasting more ads in prime time. SBS managing director Michael Ebeid said the broadcaster would seek additional savings from its existing programming budget.

Two years ago, SBS On Demand which stretches across 22 platforms received 4 million views per month. Mr Ebeid said last month it received 14 million video views in one month alone.

He said the service had grown from an online catch-up service to a go-to content destination in its own right.

The new SBS On Demand website (pictured) scales down to the size of devices that access it, with rows of movie title thumbnails under various genres as you scroll down, in what’s looks a bit like a Netflix interface.

SBS told The Australian the revamped On Demand platform would feature pre-roll ads and ads would be inserted into content. But they’d only be shown at up to the same frequency allowed for free-to-air content.

The 4000 hours is not far short of the 6000 hours of content available on Netflix or the approximately 4500 hours available on Foxtel Presto. But it reflects more the SBS eclectic offering of international content. It would include 350 feature documentaries.

SBS said it had developed its On Demand content platform in-house but like many media organisations used US cloud provider Akamai’s delivery network for distribution.

To underline the audience shift towards on-demand services, SBS said it would release more first episodes of series online before going free-to-air. Other content would show exclusively online.

Over coming months, SBS On Demand content will include season three of Rectify, which will be exclusively premiered online ahead of TV broadcast. Bosch and Masters of Sex also will preview exclusively online.

Mr Ebeid told a gathering of technology journalists that SBS’s future was as a “branded content gateway” which viewers could access from a range of platforms.

“SBS On Demand is an investment we’ve been making that is a key part of our future strategy,” he said.

“It's the biggest legal free library of movies. We’ve got about 600 movies on demand,” he said, “In total it’s about 4000 hours of content. Netflix in Australia’s got about 6000.”

He said SBS had experienced a 30 per cent increase in active users on its website in about a year and was the fastest growing website in the Neilsen broadcast media category. In the same period, there was a 100 per cent increase in “news usage” online, on tablets and mobile.

He said 32 per cent of Australians were using SBS On Demand regularly, second only to ABC’s iView in on-demand services.

“What’s even more impressive is when you think that the fact that (ABC’s) iView which has been in the market a bit longer, 50 per cent of their content is ABC kids content which SBS doesn’t have,” he told the gathering. “Taking away the kids’ content, the numbers are pretty good.”