E! Entertainment (DStv 124) is getting competition with CBS that launched ET Live on Wednesday night as a new, 24-hour streaming entertainment news TV channel.
ET Live at www.etlive.com as an over-the-top (OTT) channel,is a spin-off from the American entertainment news magazine show, Entertainment Tonight, and will deliver 24/7 coverage of entertainment news, including breaking news, celebrity interviews, features, behind-the-scenes and red carpet coverage, plus trends stories across celebrity fashion, beauty and lifestyle.
CBS says ET Live won't just be a rehash of Entertainment Tonight but features original programming done by new presenters, including Lauren Zima, Denny Directo, Cassie DiLaura, Tanner Thomason, Jason Carter and Melicia Johnson.
Entertainment Tonight's presenters Nancy O’Dell, Kevin Frazier, Nischelle Turner and Keltie Knight will all make regular appearances on ET Live. Besides the rolling coverage, ET Live also offers viewers clips of entertainment news and various topics.
ET Live will attend and cover red-carpet premieres, do behind-the-scenes visits to movie sets, do rolling news coverage of big and breaking entertainment news and topics and attend major events like award shows, for instance the Oscars and Emmys, and Comic Con.
"ET Live is a natural expansion of our strategy and expertise in this area. We have the great advantage of being able to apply key learnings from our leading digital entertainment properties and marry that with the number one entertainment brand in Entertainment Tonight," says Rob Gelick, the executive vice-president and general manager for CBS Entertainment Digital for CBS Interactive, in a statement.
Becky Brooks, the senior vice-president of multiplatform programming for CBS Television Distribution, says "for almost four decades, Entertainment Tonight has set the gold standard for entertainment news, utilizing our unique access to celebrities and sets to bring original reporting and great storytelling to every defining pop culture and entertainment topic and event".
"We were the first to invent the daily entertainment news genre, and now the first to bring an always-on, 24/7 entertainment streaming channel to serve our expanding audience of loyal and new viewers."
Besides the online live stream at etlive.com accessible on computers, smartphones and tablets, there is also an ET Live app on Google Play and iOS, although it's not yet accessible for South African and African users.
