The Beeb has buddied up with Samsung to bring its News app – currently available on PC and smartphone – onto Samsung TV sets from today.
The telly app will complement the already existing BBC News channel and its “red button” playback features and will become available on Samsung boxes in what Auntie’s Director of Future Media Ralph Rivera says will become “One service. Ten Products. Four Screens” – PC, phone, tablet and now Samsung will bring the service to the fourth screen – television.
How will it differ from the PC version? Surely both have the larger screen appeal. The DFM puts his answer very visually, “Is that really a TV? – When it has a processor and storage in it, it actually looks like a computer but the big screen happens to be good at playing video” – adding “All of these things are computers, with different sized pieces of glass. What we want to do is provide experiences across the landscape”.
Designed for HTML5, the BBC News app will no doubt be proven in its success and will make it onto other manufacturer’s sets in time – but for now it’s available exclusively through the Samsung App Store.
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