July 7, 2020

Fincons, FreeWheel, HiSilicon, Realtek, Salto, Teduin, Xperi – HbbTV Association grows with 7 new members

Geneva, July 7, 2020 – The HbbTV Association, a global initiative dedicated to providing open standards for the delivery of advanced interactive TV services through broadcast and broadband networks for connected TV sets and set-top boxes, is proud to announce that seven new companies have joined the industry association in the past 12 months.

The new members are leading service providers, technology companies and platform operators Fincons Group, FreeWheel (Comcast International France), HiSilicon Technologies, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation, Salto, Teduin and Xperi Corporation.

“The past months have shown the strength of broadcast TV in difficult times as a highly valuable and dependable source of news, information and entertainment to the general public,” said Vincent Grivet Chair of the HbbTV Association. “The rising audience figures confirm the important role of broadcasters in today’s competitive media landscape. And when the power of legacy broadcast TV is complemented by additional internet-based services such as catch-up TV, restart, an on-demand library and other interactive services thanks to HbbTV hybrid technology, it creates a compelling viewing experience.”

Francesco Moretti, Deputy CEO of Fincons Group, said: “At Fincons we aim at accelerating the take-off of new applications that leverage HbbTV combined with AI and cloud technologies, to further enhance TV personalisation, user engagement and monetisation. With a focus on citizens: for entertainment, accessibility and emerging alerting.”

Thomas Bremond, General Manager International at FreeWheel, added: “We’re delighted to place our premium video expertise at the service of this important global initiative. Interactive TV services and addressability are key components of the future of video advertising. As these services scale and evolve, industry collaboration will be critical to maintaining transparency and the highest quality for all solutions.”

Thomas Follin, CEO of Salto, said: “HbbTV will be key to bring the innovative Salto service on all TV screens in France, and thus becoming an HbbTV member was natural, as a way to collaborate with the world-class TV ecosystem players in the future efforts to develop and deploy the HbbTV specifications. We are committed to supporting HbbTV as the enabler and the catalyst of an open environment for innovative and rich TV services, as it has been for the last 10 years.”

Juan Manuel Martín, CEO of Teduin, added: “We are proud to contribute to the spread and worldwide knowledge of the HbbTV technology, especially in Spain, where the needs of the market are growing exponentially. The opportunities available through hybrid broadcast, such as 7-day video back, or access to the archive of classic content on public television, ensure that the user experience will be complete. More and more channels are joining into the advantages of the HbbTV technology, and we feel confident that our bet in HbbTV is a success.”

Ted Laverty, Vice President, Global Standards at Xperi Corporation, said: “At Xperi, we focus on making entertainment more entertaining, so we’re delighted to be joining HbbTV at a time our business is expanding in the connected TV space thanks to our merger with TiVo. Working with standards organisations like HbbTV to develop specifications which are recognised across the industry ensures that technology suppliers, operators, consumer electronics companies and the consumer can all benefit from the exciting opportunities and new use cases that connected devices provide.”

With the new members, the HbbTV Association’s membership base rises to 78 companies from all areas of the broadcast and broadband industry. The full list of members can be accessed at https://www.hbbtv.org/membership/#members.