Live TV streaming platform Magine launches in the UK

Stockholm-based live-streaming television service Magine TV, sometimes known as the ‘Spotify for TV’, is launching in the UK.

Magine is a cloud-based service that lets subscribers stream live and recorded TV on a range of devices. It’s currently available in Sweden, where it launched in 2012, and Germany. Many of its users don’t own a television.

According to a report by WIRED, Magine’s app will be available to download by 3,000 beta users next Tuesday.

Magine has partnered with major UK broadcasters ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to deliver the service. Its pricing model is still under discussion.

Ambuj Goyal, Magine’s chief executive, told WIRED that he plans to negotiate deals with “hundreds of individual channels”.

“In a few months, we will be launching a full service in the UK and are talking to other broadcasters like the BBC to bring on board as well,” he said. “We’re also talking to partners in other European, Latin American and Asian countries to go live.”

Goyal continued: “90 years after TVs were invented, we are still watching live television on a screen stuck to a wall with wires and cables… We want to change that.”