Primetime Entertainment, provider of premium online movies and video on demand, has partnered with pay-TV operator CTH and Lazada, Southeast Asia's biggest online vendor, to introduce a new set-top box to attract viewers looking for quality content.
Called "ZIPtv nano Primetime", the new set-box will provide the best of sports, movies and TV shows for consumers, said executives.
Lazada is the exclusive online distributor of the ZIPtv nano Primetime box.
Customers who buy the nano box from Lazada will get it at a special price of 2,499 baht, allowing them to watch CTH programmes and English Premier League matches as well as movies and series from Primetime. There are three packages on offer.
Customers can also buy the boxes from CTH dealers or Primetime's DNA shops and choose more viewing packages from CTH.
Kasidit Kolasastraseni, chief executive of Primetime, said demand for online entertainment content was increasing, with support from high-speed broadband internet and a variety of content.
"This prompted us to partner with CTH, the leading pay-TV service provider and EPL broadcast rights holder, to launch our ZIPtv nano Primetime," he said.
The nano box is very small and customers can connect it to any screen if they have WiFi or a LAN connection. They can watch all content via TV, mobile phone, tablet or computer screen with high definition quality.
Primetime targets selling 50,000 nano boxes by the year-end.
It began providing an online movie download service five months ago with 250,000 downloads in total. It has 20,000 members, of whom 80% are active.
"We hope our members will increase to 80,000 by the year-end including those who buy our nano boxes," Mr Kasidit said.
Primetime will invest 200 million baht to buy more content.
Primetime's strengths are new movies three months after cinema release, classics and popular TV series from Hollywood, independent, foreign and Thai filmmakers and other production studios, he said.
Its popular package is the movie buffet, which costs 299 baht a month.
For the three special packages for Lazada customers, the first one is a one-month access to Beyond CTHZ, which includes all channels from CTH and over 70 channels with a variety of content, such as National Geographic.
The second is Primetime's Combo package, which allows limited access to its library of classic movies and popular TV series with two newly released movies.
The third is the Starter package, offering 12-month access to Thai and Asian movies and TV series along with movies and TV series produced by CTH.