Launching initially in the US, XITE (pron: “Excite”) is a new music video app that will be available on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Comcast X1 Xfinity – and it will be coming soon to Roku. It has deals in place with all the majors as well as a number of indies and will offer 100 curated channels at launch.
The initial focus will be on smart TVs, set-top boxes and connected devices, but a standalone smartphone app is expected to be available in the second half of the year. Its founders say it will build up profiles of users based on their viewing history and make refined recommendations based on this. Users will also be able to create their own stations.
“Music videos continue to dominate overall music streaming, and we see an enormous opportunity to bring a beautifully designed, pure-play music video service to the US,” said Cees Honig, Co-CEO and original founding member of XITE, in a statement.
The company has an impressive advisory board, including Bill Roedy (former chairman and CE at MTV), Jason Flom (founder of Lava Records and former CEO at both Atlantic and Capitol) and Roger Faxon (former EMI Group CEO and Pandora board member).
The company says it is a freemium product with the base product being ad-supported and free to customers. XITE was founded in Amsterdam in 2008 and claims to reach 80m households across Europe, North America and the Middle East.
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