Do you know about iStreamPlanet? If not, you should. Not only is it revolutionizing TV technology with its live video streaming and video on-demand capabilities, but Turner acquired a majority stake in the company in August 2015. Outside of being obsessed with high-quality video and great fan experiences, here are a few very interesting nuggets:
The company currently provides the backend for streaming some of the biggest sports events, including the Olympics, Super Bowl, and, perhaps most notably, NCAA March Madness Live, NBA League Pass, and most recently the FIFA World Cup for a major media company in the US. Its OTT live linear channel business powers more than 1,500 channels for customers, including Fox, fuboTV, Hulu, NBC Sports, and Turner.
This historic wedding chapel has married hundreds of thousands of couples, including many celebrities, and still to this day offers livestreaming as an option so that friends and relatives who aren’t able to be there in person can take part in their special day. Though iStreamPlanet no longer powers this service, A Little White Chapel is where it all began.
Born in what is now known as Croatia, Babic arrived in the U.S. in 1995 with only two duffel bags and $276. He’s a self-taught technologist and business leader who went from webcasting more than 1,000 wedding ceremonies a year to running a robust media company, livestreaming for fans at mass scale. He has driven many firsts for the industry, including the first implementations of digital rights management (DRM) with live streaming, the first live, multi-camera webcast, the first delivery of over-the-top 60Hz content, and the first live streaming of the Super Bowl.
With an office location close to Amazon and not too far from Google and Microsoft, iStreamPlanet lives in good company in Seattle. While it all started in Vegas, where its customer support and content aggregation center were, the Seattle office housed its product development team. Today, the company has more than 140 employees.
The technology will help Turner deliver rich experiences to thousands of fans of live sporting events such as UEFA soccer matches, NCAA Championship events and NBA games. It is a natural fit as Turner and iStreamPlanet are committed to leading innovation and empowering fans to find and watch their favorite sports content anywhere, anytime and on the screen of their choice.