Mic drop: Simplestream takes the best of British stand-up comedy beyond the traditional DVD special

Simplestream, leaders in live and on-demand OTT services, today announced that it has been chosen by NextUp to build its video streaming service dedicated initially to British stand-up comedy, with international ambitions.

The Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) service brings together dozens of stand-up specials from established and up-and-coming comedians including Ed Bryne, Richard Herring, Lou Sanders, Simon Munnery and Tony Law. NextUp's current financial raise is open at a value of £2 million, including recent investment from Bruce Tuchman former president of AMC Global and Sundance Channel Global. All material can be streamed on-demand across iOS, Android and desktop. Coming soon is the ability to view offline, as well as new apps for Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV.

We love stand-up comedy and the amazing variety of shows on offer throughout the UK said Sarah Henley, Co-Founder of NextUp. However, we noticed that time and time again, these comedy shows would just disappear without any visual trace which was sad for both comedians whose work was being lost, and for fans who often couldn't make it to a gig in person. NextUp is designed to be the solution, preserving shows for comics and showcasing them worldwide and building their audience, whilst allowing fans to catch-up on the shows they missed and discover new comedians. Our hope from the beginning has been to build an engaging, content-rich platform that taps into what is a huge untapped market for British and international comedy around the world. The Simplestream team have been such a pleasure to work with and have delivered the flexible, high-quality and stylish platform we were confident that they would deliver with the opportunity to expand our features and content potential.

The service was built on Simplestream's award-winning VOD-in-a-Box: an end-to-end, white label service that enables the rapid launch of next-generation TV Everywhere services across multiple screens and territories. This fast to market, cross platform solution can be deployed in under six weeks and is designed to be a low maintenance, cost effective option for content owners and distributors.

We see NextUp as a digital stage for the talent that fuels the increasingly popular comedy scene, added Dan Finch, Chief Commercial Officer of Simplestream. The added fact that the service directly benefits the featured comedians made this project even more special for us. We are really pleased to have worked with NextUp to build this gateway to both UK and international underground and mainstream comic talent.

Simplestream will be demonstrating the technology behind VOD-in-a-Box and its complete end-to-end service portfolio at TV Connect 2018, May 9-10, Olympia, London

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