FOXTEL tunes in to more channels with Hostworks

The FOXTEL Channels Group, which includes FOX8, ARENA, W, Bio, The History Channel, CI Network, The Comedy Channel, A&E, FOX Classics and 111 HITS, has announced that it will be expanding its ongoing relationship with leading provider of solutions to the online and digital media industry, Hostworks, throughout 2012.

Hostworks has been managing the FOX8 website for the FOXTEL Channels Group since early 2010. In 2012 all channels within the group will be migrating to the Hostworks platform. At present the channels within the Group are hosted by a range of providers but based on the performance of the FOX8 website the decision has been made to consolidate all sites onto a single hosting platform.

The unique Elastic Compute Infrastructure provided by Hostworks lets FOXTEL manage spikes in website traffic easily and scale up its online presence to meet online demand from top-rating shows like the “Australia’s Next Top Model” franchise. Hostworks Content Delivery Service also lets FOXTEL scale the delivery of digital content without the need for additional bandwidth or web servers.

Chuck Smeeton, Head of Digital, FOXTEL Channels Group said, “The service that Hostworks provides for our FOX8 website has let us deal with spikes in web traffic easily. Scaling up our online presence as needed and ensuring we can meet the demand for cross platform content is an essential service. Hostworks make sure we are able to give our website visitors the content they want at all times. Popular shows can result in the traffic to our sites increasing by up to 10 times so being able to deal with this level of traffic at short notice is essential.”

Adrian Britton, General Manager of Technology, Strategy and Innovation for Hostworks said, “Expanding our services to include the whole of the FOXTEL Channels Group is a great opportunity for us. When dealing with websites in the media industry we have to consider highly variable levels of web traffic, the need for video on demand and even live video streams. Hostworks lets the FOXTEL Channels Group provide access to online materials direct from content caches and stream direct from the Hostworks media servers. This means the FOXTEL Channels Group can offer a quality online user experience and reduce the demand for internet bandwidth at the same time.”

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About Hostworks Since its inception in 1999, Hostworks has demonstrated market leadership in the successful management of many of the most critical online and digital media environments for Australia’s leading companies. Providing innovative services and solutions to clients including nine of the eleven major Australian broadcasters and corporate media organisations, Hostworks delivers online services to four of the top ten Australian websites.

Customers benefit from brand and financial protection, reduced risk, expertise in managing "peaky" or high transaction workloads, and a unique capability of video/audio delivery through the Broadcast Australia relationship.

Hostworks clients include the ABC, AHL, AUSTAR, Australia Post, Grays Online, Network TEN, ninemsn, realestate.com.au, SBS, SEEK, Ticketek and Vodafone.

Hostworks is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Broadcast Australia Pty Limited.

www.hostworks.com.au

About FOXTEL FOXTEL is Australia's leading subscription television provider and is connected to over 1.65 million homes on cable and satellite through retail and wholesale distribution. FOXTEL strives to ensure subscribers find TV they want to watch every time they switch on through delivery of more than 200 channels covering news, sport, general entertainment, movies, documentaries, music and children’s programming. FOXTEL is owned by Telstra (50%), News Corporation (25%), and Consolidated Media Holdings (25%).