Case Study

Neon

Delivering a Super-Charged Streaming Experience for New Zealand’s Biggest Pay TV Operator - Neon

Background

In 1990 SKY became New Zealand’s first pay television service, sparking a long history of serving a range of offerings to the island nation of nearly 5 million. Now, Sky TV is NZ’s biggest pay TV operator, offering a digital service and several OTT products including the Neon subscription video on-demand (SVOD) service, Sky Sport Now (its sports offering) and Sky Go (the supporting product to its digital service).

Deliverables

- Development
- Solutions
- Architecture
- UX Design
- Project Management
- Application build

Objective

Having completed the acquisition of SVOD and TVOD service Lightbox from Spark in the early stages of 2020, Sky TV wanted to merge the service with its NEON entertainment streamer, Sky’s TV on-demand SVOD service. The aim was to create a super-charged service for New Zealand customers, bringing together a strong line of popular content in one locally delivered steaming service. Sky TV also wanted to update the user experience (UX) design across the web, mobile, games console and CTV platform, while integrating the new Neon branding into the Lightbox platform. This would involve some middleware integration, requiring a vendor with in-depth experience in multi-platform delivery. We were highly impressed with the Accedo team, not only by its experience in multi-platform video delivery, but also by the highly efficient way it led the front-end development of this project.

With Accedo’s invaluable support, Sky TV has been able to launch probably the biggest and best paid-entertainment streaming service in New Zealand. "We were so pleased by Accedo’s excellent service that we tasked the team with the mobile support of some of our other products, including Sky EPG, Sky Sport Highlights and Sky Go" - Ricki Taiaroa, Head of Entertainment Streaming Sky TV
The chosen vendor also needed to be able to work quickly across the multi-faceted, time-sensitive project which needed to be achieved by July 2020

Solution

Sky TV knew that Accedo had a proven track-record of excellence in its ability to deliver engaging video experiences across multiple platforms. Accedo also has a strong local presence in ANZ and an understanding of the challenges and needs of the local video streaming market. As such, Sky TV decided to partner with Accedo to bring its new combined streaming offering of NEON and Lightbox to market. Accedo acted as the front-end lead for the merger of the Lightbox platform and the development of the UX, bring extensive knowledge of the front-end interface to the project. Working with Sky TV to outline a plan which would ensure the delivery of the application on time, the Accedo team was able to develop a fresh, updated and engaging application interface for the new NEON service which provides an unrivalled viewer experience for Sky TV’s customers.Thanks to its efficient project management and experience in the market, Accedo was also able to exceed expectations and deliver the applications before the end of May 2020 - well ahead of the anticipated launch date. In fact, due to the efficiency, Accedo was able to support Sky NZ with the launch of activities and provide risk mitigations.The new NEON application launched in July of 2020 with three times more engagement than the former Lightbox app, outlining the success of Accedo’s involvement in the front-end delivery of the app.

A tablet and mobile device showcasing the same UI screen of the Neon app

“We were highly impressed with the Accedo team, not only by their experience in multi-platform video delivery, but also by the highly efficient way they led the front-end development of this project. With Accedo’s invaluable support, Sky TV has been able to launch probably the biggest and best paid-entertainment streaming service in New Zealand. We were so pleased by Accedo’s excellent service that we tasked the team with the mobile support of some of our other products, including Sky EPG, Sky Sport Highlights and Sky Go.”

Ricki Taiaroa

Head of Entertainment

Streaming at Sky TV
A tablet and mobile device showcasing the same UI screen of the Neon app

“We were highly impressed with the Accedo team, not only by their experience in multi-platform video delivery, but also by the highly efficient way they led the front-end development of this project. With Accedo’s invaluable support, Sky TV has been able to launch probably the biggest and best paid-entertainment streaming service in New Zealand. We were so pleased by Accedo’s excellent service that we tasked the team with the mobile support of some of our other products, including Sky EPG, Sky Sport Highlights and Sky Go.”

Ricki Taiaroa

Head of Entertainment
Streaming at Sky TV

Result

With Accedo’s efforts and experience in the market, Sky TV was able to launch the new Neon app in July 2020. This offered its subscribed customers an innovative, on-demand viewing experience that’s seamless and easily navigated.

The service is home to new and exclusive world-class content. This includes movies and the option to rent new releases. The platform allowed customers to watch with great flexibility. Features such as Download & Go, provided the ability to download content for viewing anywhere and at any time.