History & Military History Get New U.K. Consumer Websites

LONDON: The newly upgraded consumer websites for History and Military History in the U.K. feature a Brightcove video player and Sky+ remote recording capabilities, among other enhanced services. 

Users can view original short-form content via the Brightcove Video Player, including clips from History series, videos for featured events from This Day in History and original web series like Great and Telling Tales. Integration with Sky’s TV listings API allows remote recording of Sky+ directly from program pages on the History website.

 The websites also feature an interactive timeline, which allows users to click on a date on the timeline to access short-form video, This Day in History articles and videos, Encyclopedia Britannica articles and a list of programs all related to the selected date. 

History and Military History website users can also access dedicated mini-sites for series and specials airing on the networks. The mini-sites include original short form, program and character background, image galleries, maps, games and quizzes. 

Andrew Watt, the digital media manager for The History Channel UK, said, “As we approached the redesign, we wanted to create an holistic user experience combining the web and TV viewing, through video, PVR access and other exciting planned features. We think we’ve achieved that.”

“I’m thrilled about the relaunch of the U.K. websites but it’s only the beginning of our international digital properties rollout,” commented Fabienne Fourquet, the senior director of international digital media for AETN. “The rest of Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia will follow within the next two years and offer richer video experiences as well as immersive content and more apps, games and engaging features around our programs and channel brands."