Ahead of next month’s FIFA World Cup, Roku UK has announced a new Football Zone to highlight content to viewers.
The company is working with the BBC, ITV and STV to showcase live matches, highlights, and related content together in one simple, centralised hub on Roku devices.
Fans will also see a dynamic scoreboard covering all matches, alongside a leaderboard tracking the tournament’s top goal scorer.
Roku’s home screen has also been updated to celebrate the tournament, with MetLife Stadium (renamed the New York New Jersey Stadium for the World Cup) prominently featured. “There’s a lot of care being taken to make it beautiful,” Richard Halton, country manager Roku UK, tells TVBEurope.
“The games themselves will be in what we call flag versus flag tiles, such as England versus Panama. We’re working with the BBC and ITV to surface their related content, such as documentaries. That is why we’re referring to it as the Football Zone, because it’s a bigger proposition than just the game.”
Roku UK has a history of working with broadcasters to help promote their content on its devices via its What to Watch feature. “The broadcasters all allow us to access all their metadata, and we actually populate those rows using Machine Learning/AI,” explains Halton.
“What we’ve found is you get more engagement from users, because there’s a better, more personalised experience. I kind of love the fact that we’re in a world where sometimes we can say to the broadcasters, you bring your editorial knowledge and we’ll surface that, but equally they’re prepared to say, you’ve got these personalisation tools and we’re happy to be part of that world too, and let’s see whether that generates better outcomes for audiences.”
As part of the Football Zone, Roku is also offering unique features within its mobile app, including Headphone Mode, which enables fans to watch late-night or early-morning matches without disturbing others.
To coincide with the launch of the Football Zone, Roku is also introducing new Smart Projectors to the UK market with partners Aurzen and Sharp. At launch, the devices can stream content in 1080p 2K.
