Fetch turns Catch-Up TV into streaming Channels for easy navigation

Catch Up TV has come a long way in a very short time but perhaps there’s still a mountain to climb when you think of the vast change in habit required from everyday users to find Catch Up services let alone use them.

Enter Fetch who have today added five new channels to their program guide which are in fact not real channels, but virtual ones.

Here’s how it works – in your program guide on a Fetch Box you’ll now see channels 180, 184, 188, 192 and 196 are “Virtual playlists”.

They are labelled with the names of each free-to-air channel’s respective catch-up service (SBS on Demand, 7Plus, 9Now, 10 Play, ABC iView).

Within the EPG these channels will show titles from that catch-up service as if they are “on air now”.

Switching into one of these channels will launch that channel’s Catch Up app on Fetch and play the program from the start.

The idea is to expose the titles available to more users, and in turn increase engagement with the catch-up services.

Imagine your kids scrolling through the channels on Fetch and seeing Ninja Warrior is on – they’re more likely to click than if it just said “9Now – the best from Nine channels” or similar.

This feature adds to several other nifty Free-to-air engaged features already on Fetch which of course include all the catch-up apps using the same Fetch user interface, but also the “My Stuff” option.

Lots of users don’t know that if you’re using your Fetch Box to watch catch up content you can browse to Menu > MyStuff > Catch Up and see all the shows you love, and get straight back to where you left off.