WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SnagFilms today announced a series of distribution deals and content agreements that will enable the company, which currently streams more than 2300 documentary films to a global online audience, to expand in two dimensions. In addition to a significant upgrade of its SnagFilms.com website, the company announced it would soon expand its distribution of the SnagFilms app from iOS to Android and BlackBerry® OS platforms, enabling viewers to watch its films on substantially all smartphones and tablet devices via applications that leverage the Adobe® Air® runtime; expand its pay-on-demand titles from its current distribution partnerships with MVPD giants Comcast and FiOS to DIRECTV; expand the services and technologies enabling it to connect to viewers via television set-top boxes from Roku and Boxee to Xbox LIVE for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft; expand the pay-services by which its content can be purchased or rented from iTunes, Amazon, and YouTube Premium to Vudu and Samsung Media Hub; and announced partnerships that would enable SnagFilms to be accessible on major connected TV sets built by Sony, Samsung and Vizio. Additionally, the company announced that it was expanding the range of titles it offers viewers from non-fiction films to independent feature films, cinematic classics and important foreign films.
Free Streamed Movies
Since 2008, SnagFilms has brought its vast library of free, advertising- supported non-fiction films to a global audience via over 110,000 website and webpage partners, including portals such as Xfinity.com, Hulu, Aol, and Yahoo; film sites such as IMDb; news sites; thousands of blogs, non-profit and special interest sites, as well as on tens of thousands of social network pages to which independent film fans have been able to “snag” and embed movies SnagFilms distributes. SnagFilms’ iPad app launched in early 2011 and has been named to “Top App” lists by Gizmodo, Huffington Post and TechCocktail. SnagFilms will now expand its distribution of free-streamed movies across new platforms and multiple devices:
- Utilizing Adobe® Air®, SnagFilms’ apps will bring the largest collection of full-length, free-to-view feature films available to Android-based smartphones, and to tablet devices utilizing the Android and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ Tablet platforms. SnagFilms will be available on more than 130 smartphones and 85 tablets by the end of the year. The app was developed by Digital Primates.
- In the rapidly expanding realm of connected TVs, SnagFilms apps will place films on television sets offered by Sony, Samsung and Vizio.
Pay-To-View Or Own
In late 2010, SnagFilms began offering pay-on-demand digital premieres on branded channels with Comcast’s Xfinity and Verizon FiOS systems. It also began offering titles for sale or rent via iTunes, and is Apple AirPlay enabled, letting viewers watch SnagFilms content on Apple TV. SnagFilms content is also available via Amazon and YouTube’s Premium service.
Today, SnagFilms announces an expansion of its pay-window distribution of films that will enable viewers to access its content in nearly half of all U.S. television households:
- SnagFilms’ releases will appear on DIRECTV Cinema beginning later this month. With more than 19.4 million customers, DIRECTV is one of the world’s leading providers of digital television entertainment services. SnagFilms now has distribution deals with the top Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (cable, satellite, and telco), reaching close to 50 million households.
- SnagFilms titles will now be available through the VUDU streaming service. A leading subscription-free, video-on-demand movie service, VUDU’s content library includes more than 30,000 blockbusters, Hollywood classics, independent films and TV episodes.
- SnagFilms will now be available via more than 30 million Xbox LIVE members through the Zune Video Marketplace.
- Titles will also be offered on Samsung Media Hub for Samsung smartphones and the Samsung Galaxy Tab™.
SnagFilms.com, Version 2.0
SnagFilms also announced a significant upgrade of the SnagFilms.com website, incorporating new features and functionality for users to explore, view, share and support films.
The new SnagFilms.com launched this morning and offers:
- A state-of-the-art proprietary embeddable player, with easy tools for accessing more information, sharing and creating a personalized queue through which users can sample and return to multiple movies of their choice. The player can automatically play films encoded in Flash, H264 (Safari and IE9 browsers) and OGG (Firefox, Chrome), and will automatically switch to the HTML5 version when possible, for faster video loading and the smoothest viewing experience;
- A design that surfaces multiple films in every view, offering editorially curated slates of similar films, enhanced abilities to search in categories or by popular appeal (utilizing SOLR technology, which allows for robust filtering on the site’s Browse film pages, and highest relevancy for its Movie Matcher and sections such as what’s “Hot”), and contextual content (including from SnagFilms’ indieWIRE);
- A reconceived hub for “filmanthropy,” where inspiration gained from viewing social change films can easily be translated into dialogue and action (from volunteering to donating to spreading the film itself and word about the issue which the film brings to light.) Some 18 causes are featured, each with related films, representative charities, and further information;
- Broader social functionality, including deep Facebook integration of the viewing, saving, commenting and sharing experiences.
The new site was developed in conjunction with David Gang of Perfect Sense Digital. Mr. Gang was the principal product developer for AOL, from AOL 3.0 to AOL 9.0, for multiple iterations of AOL Instant Messenger, and other technology products used by more than 100 million users worldwide.
“We began three years ago with a simple premise,” noted SnagFilms founder and chairman Ted Leonsis, “that new technologies could liberate audiences to enjoy great films that, because of a bottleneck in traditional film distribution, they might not ever get to see. With these remarkable enhancements to SnagFilms.com and the new distribution partnerships we’ve announced today, SnagFilms becomes a ubiquitous platform that will benefit consumers, filmmakers and communities.”
SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen concluded, “In a very short period of time, SnagFilms has developed into a disruptive technology that has literally changed the way a global audience can see the independent films they love. By dramatically expanding our distribution, and now offering feature films in addition to documentaries, SnagFilms is fulfilling its promise beyond the expectations we had for it when we began in 2008.”
About SnagFilms
SnagFilms features free, sponsor-supported, on demand viewing of more than 2,300 award-winning titles from some of the greatest names in film. SnagFilms’ curated film collection is viewed on its own site and a digital network of more than 110,000 affiliated sites and webpages worldwide, including partners such as AOL, Comcast, Hulu, the Starbucks Digital Network, IMDb, the Miami Herald, hundreds of non-profits, special interest sites and blogs — and via its applications for the iPad and connected TV platforms Roku and Boxee. SnagFilms’ titles have been featured on approximately 3 billion pageviews across its network.
SnagFilms also offers selected titles via pay video on demand with Comcast and FiOS, as well as on iTunes, HuluPlus, Amazon and other partners. SnagFilms was recently named one of the fastest growing technology companies in Washington, DC area. Gizmodo has named SnagFilms as a “Best iPad App,” OVGuide has twice named SnagFilms a Top Site, and MovieMaker Magazine named SnagFilms to its annual list of “50 Best Websites for Moviemakers.” The SnagFilms family also includes indieWIRE, for more than 15 years the web’s top source of news, reviews and information about independent film.
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