MLB.TV Premium Now Available on Roku's Over-the-Top-TV Platform

Over-the-top-TV company, Roku, announced a deal with MLB.com Monday night that will allow subscribers to the MLB.TV Premium service to watch live Major League Baseball games from across the US on its $99 Roku digital video player. MLB.TV is Roku's fifth announced content partner to date--the others being Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand, whose services are already available on the platform, and Mediafly and Blip.tv, whose services are expected to launch on the platform in the fall (see articles published on itvt.com, July 21st and 29th)--and it is the first partner to offer live video on the platform. The company says that the MLB.TV Premium-Roku player combo enables customers to watch live, out-of-market baseball games in HD quality where available, as well as on-demand games from the past week. The combo also provides a schedule of upcoming games and supports such features as pause, rewind and fast-forward. MLB.TV Premium subscribers can link their subscription to their Roku player via a series of on-screen prompts. "Delivering live and on-demand MLB games to the Roku player is huge for our customers, who value great quality content and ease of use," Roku founder and CEO, Anthony Wood, said in a prepared statement. "The Roku player is the easiest and most affordable way to bring movies and TV shows--and now major league sports--to the TV using a broadband Internet connection." Added Kenny Gersh, SVP of business development at MLB.com: "Roku delivered a consumer-friendly interactive platform last year when it launched the ground-breaking digital video player. This represents another benefit to our customers as we further extend accessibility for MLB.TV Premium subscribers to watch live games online."

In other Roku news: According to a report in Contentinople last week that cited documents filed with the SEC, the company has raised an additional $13.4 million from Menlo Ventures in two financing rounds ($5 million to close its Series C round, and then an additional $8.4 million).