Belgium’s leading commercial broadcaster, Medialaan, has chosen Yospace’s Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) system to monetise live channels on the new TV everywhere service, Stievie Premium.

The renewed, paying version of Stievie’s online television service is available since Monday 21^st August 2017. This new Stievie Premium edition offers 18 live TV channels and catch up services, up to six days, and can be viewed on all screens: smartphone, tablet, laptop and TV screen. It is even possible to schedule recordings.

The offer includes the Medialaan channels VTM, Q2, Vitaya, CAZ, VTMKZOOM, KADET and Qmusic; VRT channels Eén, Canvas and Ketnet; SBS channels VIER, VIJF and ZES; complemented by Discovery channels Eurosport, TLC and Discovery and the channels provided by FOX: National Geographic and Nat Geo Wild. All of these stations together account for almost 90% of the audience watching television in Flanders. This package is available for €9.99 euros a month.

The project is particularly innovative because it enables “start-over” streams. In what is a world-first, viewers are able to use scrub controls to rewind a live stream in a program. Ad breaks for viewers using this capability are made shorter so they are able to catch up with the real-time live programming.

Pieter Coucke, solution architect at Medialaan, says: “We want to make a difference as a media company and extend our strengths in linear broadcasting to the always-connected online world through radical innovation.”

Yospace’s award-winning platform allows advertising to be served in live channels online in a way that is so seamless that it is true to the user experience of broadcast television, while allowing new ads to be curated to the interests of each viewer.

Coucke continues: “In essence we wanted to improve the user experience. By replacing ads that are shown on TV with personalised ads, customers watching the same live stream online have a much more compelling service.”

Edward New, Commercial Director at Yospace, says: “Yospace is the global leader in server-side Dynamic Ad Insertion for live streams. We were the first to publicly test the technology, the first to announce a commercial launch, and the first to deliver a full sporting season of top-flight football.”

“The project with Medialaan has taken the technology to a completely new level of sophistication that has not been seen anywhere before. The forward-thinking attitude of Medialaan has helped engineer a step change in live television.”

Stievie Premium is available on iOS, Android and web platforms.