Consolidated Communications Holdings said it’s the first U.S. service provider to offer Vemox, a Spanish-language streaming service from Olympusat

Vemox, available to Consolidated broadband customers on an a la carte basis, sells for $9.99 per month and features a VOD library with thousands of titles and more than 70 Spanish TV channels. Vemox is supported on iOS and Android mobile devices and Samsung and LG Electronics smart TVs.

Per the Vemox site, the service features 27 live TV channels in standard def, including Canal 10 Mexico, Cubaplay, EJTV, and Sopresa, and 39 in HD, including Estrella TV, TV Chile, Ultra Familia, and Ultra Macho. The offering also includes a small batch of English-language channels, including Bloomberg Television and France 24.

“Providing a robust and inclusive portfolio of content offerings is something that we consistently strive to do,” Rob Koester, vice president of consumer product management at Consolidated Communications, said in a statement. “This platform gives us the ability to provide desired programming on a full range of connected devices at home or on the go.”

Programming distributor and OTT service provider Olympusat and Float Left, a maker of TV Everywhere and OTT video app systems, said they have scuttled their merger and will now pursue their longer-term business goals independently.

They didn’t specify why they killed the merger, but noted that the decision followed a six-month trial period. Olympusat and Float Left announced their merger agreement in April.

“Float Left and Olympusat will continue informal collaborations as opportunities are identified. This decision will allow each organization to remain focused on its core mission,” they said.

In tandem with the merger-related announcement, Float Left also announced that its opening an office in Toronto, and has appointed Scott Murrow to VP of sales for the North America region. Morrow most recently was VP, distribution for AMC Networks.

Float Left counts clients such as AMC Networks, Red Bull, Crackle, CBS Sports, and Viacom. It used the INTX 2016 show to debut Flicast, an interface/UI for connected devcies.

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BOSTON – The growth of media consumption on personal devices, the desire to add programming without incurring capital and content costs and aspirations to reach viewers in growing multicultural populations came together at a breakfast session at INTX on Wednesday.

A programmer-and-distributor tandem talked up the Vemox over-the-top product Olympusat is pushing that enables pay-TV providers to add live and on-demand Spanish-language programming. Jaime Montes, director of content acquisition and digital TV services at Consolidated Communications, a telco (formerly known as SureWest) with a digital-TV product, said it embraced Vemox as part of an effort to add programming in bulk without having to do many separate linear launches. He said Consolidated hopes to have a full OTT programming array – a la Sling TV – by the third quarter of the year, though it won’t replace the need for traditional TV via the set-top box for at least a decade. “It’s a complement to the linear package that we have out there.”

Olympusat Holdings CEO Tom Mohler said IP delivery of packages like Vemox gives distributors flexibility in packaging and the ability to reach mobile devices.

Christian Martinez, head of U.S. multicultural sales for Facebook, got the session started by observing that video consumption “has gone to our mobile phones.” That in turn has changed storytelling, requiring that some stories be told quickly, to audiences that are relatively young and accustomed to dealing with more than one screen device at a time. “Let’s break the mold” in terms of reaching multicultural audiences, he said.

Javier Garcia, senior vice president and general manager of multicultural services at Comcast Cable, said his business area is a key center of growth at the company. “We had the best year in multicultural ever at the company,” he said. His team is responsible for introducing new products and features at a rapid clip, he said. In addition to video tweaks – such as launching TV Japan on video on demand – those products target multicultural customers for voice services and home security, he said. A native of Colombia, Garcia said home security was a concern for his family when moving from Bogota to homes in the United States, based on their experience of living in a dangerous place.

Other speakers at the event emphasized the need to offer the right content to targeted audiences. TV One vice president of marketing & partnerships LaTanya Butler, for example, said African-American audiences are eager consumers, but expect programming to stay “true to your culture.” David Hanono, vice president of digital development at BBC Worldwide Latin America and U.S. Hispanic, said he has found that quality programming in the documentary, nature and scripted realms from the BBC translates well from “British English” into other languages. “There is tons of appetite for scripted content,” he added, an observation that Mohler of Olympusat echoed.

Condista partner Jorge Fiterre; Patrick Rivet, head of worldwide distribution at Thema-Alterna TV; and Mark Walton, president of sales and marketing at One Caribbean Television, also shared in the conversations at the session, which was produced by Multichannel News. Walton even brought a moko jumbie action figure, representing the stilt dancers that are a brightly colored fixture at carnivals in the Caribbean. Not all consumer groups – including African-American ones – are homogeneous, he said.

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Float Left, a TV app development division of Olympusat, has unleashed Flicast, an interface/user experience platform targeted to content publishers that are looking to launch direct-to-consumer video streaming services.

Float Left said Flicast pairs a customizable and unified UX with a cloud-based content discovery platform, noting that it’s compatible with TV Everywhere, subscription and ad-supported VOD services, and TV on demand service models, and enables discovery through a mix of recommendations, watchlists, and video browsing history.

Flicast, the company added, supports several streaming platforms, including Roku, Apple TV, iOS and Android mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xbox consoles, Opera TV, and LG and Samsung smart TVs.

At the show, Float Left will demo Flicast at the Olympusat booth (#360).

“With the number of streaming video services growing every day, consumers are overwhelmed with choice,” Float Left CEO Tom Schaeffer said, in a statement .“Content publishers have been struggling to figure out how to keep viewers engaged, drive loyalty, and remain competitive. We developed Flicast to not only help brands reach their audience across the connected ecosystem, but also to engage and retain their viewers through innovative personalized experiences.”

Float Left said it has launched over 250 TV Everywhere and OTT apps across more than 30 devices, and counts clients such as AMC Networks, Fox, CBS Sports, Red Bull, and Viacom.

Olympusat has secured a berth for faith and family-friendly service Upliftv on DirecTV.

Upliftv, which proffers Christian movies, documentaries, ministry fare and reality series, is currently available on channel 379 on the top DBS provider’s lineup.

Deal terms with Olympusat, which helps networks gain distribution via its “Faith & Family Suite,” were not disclosed.  

Upliftv’s lineup includes Left Behind, starring Kirk Cameron, Champions of Faith, with former Major League Baseball players Sandy Alomar Jr. and his father, and reality series, The Way of the Master.

“Olympusat is very pleased to launch the premier faith-‐based movie and series network, Upliftv on DirecTV.  Families, for the first time, can enjoy a network that focuses on Christian movies and

series,” said Olympusat CEO Tom Mohler. “We have long observed that Christian films over perform in ratings compared to other programs, so we want to give people a network with more of

what they want.” 

An independent,  Olympusat specializes in ownership, distribution, production and technical services for network. In addition to its Faith, Family and Specialty Suite offering, the company is a leader

in the Hispanic television and media space through its 70 television networks, 30 of which are available in the high-definition format.. Olympusat’s top networks include: Cine Mexicano, which earlier this month reached an agreement with 39 million DirecTV subscribers in the U.S. and Latin America,  FUNimation Channel, which recently launched with Cablevision Systems, and the newly introduced Ultra HD Plex.

Olympusat has expanded their HD suite, adding several Spanish-language networks. The company has 62 networks in total, offering 35 networks in HD. The recent expansion makes Olympusat the leading distributor of Spanish-language HD television. 

Olympusat's HD networks span several genres, demos and countries, including Venezuela’s Televen América, Chile’s family-oriented Canal 13 and Puerto Rico Network.  

Olympusat CEO Tom Mohler referenced a 2010 Nielsen report in explaining the company’s decision to expand the company’s HD reach. 

“According to Nielsen, we know that Latinos prefer HD 2-1 over SD. 61% of total Latino homes are Spanish-language dominant, with 78% dedicating their TV viewing to Spanish-language content. We want to bring our core audience more of what they want and that is great programming in HD,” said Mohler in a statement.