TV 2’s innovative app development: meeting diverse audience needs in Norwegian media
About the client
TV 2 is Norway’s leading television network, headquartered in Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city. The network, which was established in 1991, made its mark by becoming the first official commercial, free-to-air television channel in Norway a year later in 1992.
Aimed at a diverse audience, TV 2 provides a variety of channels covering entertainment, continuous 24-hour news, sports, and lifestyle programs. The network boasts significant daily viewership – its channels are watched by approximately 1.9 million people every day. This reach underlines TV 2’s position as a key player in the Norwegian media market, offering a wide range of content that meets the diverse interests of audiences.
Business needs and challenges
TV 2, as a substantial enterprise, found itself with the necessity to create multiple apps to cater to its diverse audience. This need stemmed from its large scale and varied business interests.
TV 2 Play App Development
TV 2 identified an urgent need to accelerate the development of its TV 2 Play app to achieve its business goals. Faced with a shortage of internal resources, the company was looking for a collaborative partner who could strengthen its team and ensure timely completion of the project. As the demand for Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms offering Video on Demand (VOD) and live streaming content across various devices continues to surge, the TV 2 Play app has become a key offering for the broadcaster. As the project advanced successfully, TV 2 extended our involvement to the mobile development aspect of the TV 2 Play app.
Weather App Enhancement
With the unpredictability of Norwegian weather, TV 2 aimed to improve a weather app, “Været”, for mobile and web platforms. This project involved not only displaying weather forecasts but also integrating additional features and a user-friendly weather widget for instant updates. The major challenge was the API integration process. Fortunately, the expertise acquired from previous projects enabled us to complete the app within a relatively short period, overcoming the complexities associated with API integration.
News Mobile App Launch
As a renowned Scandinavian broadcaster, TV 2 has a rich history of delivering news via TV. However, with a shift in consumer behaviour towards mobile consumption, TV 2 decided to launch a new channel for content streaming—a dedicated news mobile app. This app, designed for both iOS and Android devices, focused on the rising trend of video consumption. It was structured to present news in the form of short videos, aligning with modern content consumption preferences.
Our services
TV Play App Development
Our services encompassed comprehensive software development, including mobile development for iOS and Android, web development, automated testing, and solution provision. In this project, our team collaborated closely with the TV 2 Play software development team. This partnership offered our specialists a valuable opportunity to immerse themselves in the Scandinavian work culture and business ethics, enhancing mutual understanding and contributing to the creation of an even more refined final product. The project demanded adherence to a strict timeline to align with TV 2’s business goals while maintaining the high quality of the end product. Our team played a pivotal role in accelerating the delivery process, ensuring the application was released on time and met all customer requirements.
Weather Application Frontend Development
Better Software Group was tasked with the frontend development of a weather app for both mobile phones and web browsers. This involved displaying current and forecast weather conditions, along with integrating additional functionalities and statistical features.
TV2 Nyhetene Mobile App Development
Our responsibilities extended to the TV2 Nyhetene Mobile App, where we provided services in software development, mobile development for both iOS and Android platforms, automated testing, and solution provision. This project encompassed developing a comprehensive and user-friendly app tailored to TV2’s specific needs and requirements.
The result
In our collaboration with TV 2, we successfully developed the TV 2 Play app for various platforms including Android, Android TV, iOS, tvOS, and web. Our involvement in this project extended to a range of features such as Electronic Program Guide (EPG), user profiles, offline mode content download, and player features. The development utilised a variety of technologies: Kotlin, Kotlinx, MVVM, RxJava for Android; Objective-C, Swift, RxSwift, MVVM, Coordinators for iOS; TVML, Swift, RxSwift, MVVM, Coordinators for tvOS; and JavaScript, React for Web.
Our continued partnership with TV 2 has been consistently rewarding, and this was further exemplified in the next project—a comprehensive weather app available on the web, Android, and iOS. This intuitive app boasts a user-friendly interface and operates swiftly across all platforms. It presents weather forecasts graphically, offering features beyond the traditional scope. These include storm tracking, year-to-year weather comparisons, long-term forecasts, pollen predictions, extreme weather forecasts, detailed weather information, sunrise and sunset times, UV index, tides, humidity levels, and a handy weather widget.
Additionally, we worked with TV2 to create a comprehensive video news mobile app for Android and iOS. This app features various news categories, with a special emphasis on breaking news, which is highlighted in the app. The news is organised in a user-friendly manner, with different types of news displayed in distinct colours for easy identification, such as sports news with a blue background. The development technologies used include Kotlin + MVVM + Coroutines for Android and RxSwift + MVVM + Coordinators for iOS. This app serves as a reliable source for up-to-the-minute news, catering to the evolving media consumption habits of today’s audience.
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