This article was published on May 21, 2014

Samsung announces its own digital rental service for TV shows, kicking off in Asia this year


Samsung announces its own digital rental service for TV shows, kicking off in Asia this year

After taking a big step into the music-streaming fray with the launch of its own mobile app called Milk Music, Samsung is now entering the video-streaming space as well. The company announced ‘Project Glued’ at an event in Singapore (via Gigaom), which will let users rent an entire season of TV shows for 30 days for just $6.50.

In a press statement, Samsung said that its service will feature TV shows from the US and UK, with all content available in HD quality. Project Glued will let users not only stream TV shows, but also download them to watch on-the-go.

The video-on-demand service is scheduled to land in the third quarter of this year, kicking off with Singapore and the Philippines first. It will be available first as an app on Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and tablets, and can be downloaded for free from Samsung Apps and Google Play. According to Singapore newspaper The Straits Times, it is also being developed for the Web and Samsung’s TV sets — that should happen some time in the future.

To attract users, Samsung is offering the first episode of every season of its TV shows for free. It is also introducing a feature called ‘Gift’ that lets paying users give up to 6 friends one-day free access to a full season of the TV show they have rented.

Unfortunately, it seems like Project Glued could be limited in its reach, and we may not be able to see it launch globally in the near future, as the initiative comes from Samsung’s Media Solutions Center in Southeast Asia.

So far, Samsung seems to have been taking baby steps when launching such media platforms, treating them more of value-added services for users of its devices in different regions — for example, Milk Music is only available for US-based Samsung customers and there are also no plans yet for a global launch.

Headline image via Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

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