Sofia Digital launches HbbTV and OTT platform for Milano Pavia TV
August 27, 2026 15.29 Europe/London By Robert Briel

Sofia Digital has deployed a complete HbbTV and OTT platform for Milano Pavia TV, giving the regional broadcaster a modern Smart TV presence with targeted advertising, centralised content management and audience measurement – all delivered in under three months. The launch marks one of the fastest HbbTV rollouts in the Italian market and opens a new digital revenue stream for the broadcaster.

Milano Pavia TV previously lacked a unified system capable of managing live channels, VOD, event streaming and analytics. The brief was clear: deliver a world‑class HbbTV service quickly, make it advertising‑ready from day one, and build a platform that could scale.

Giovanni Mario Arrigone, CEO of Milano Pavia TV, said the goal was to create a future‑proof Smart TV experience that elevates local television to the usability and quality of major OTT platforms. “This platform represents a unique offering in the Italian local television market, combining premium user experience, advanced HbbTV capabilities, centralised content management, audience measurement and targeted advertising in a single ecosystem,” he said. “Sofia Digital provided exactly the expertise we needed to make that vision a reality in a very short time.”

A complete HbbTV ecosystem built on Sofia Digital’s white‑label OTT platform
Instead of building from scratch, Sofia Digital customized its production‑ready components – including the HbbTV app, Red Button launcher, advertising tools, CMS and audience measurement – to match Milano Pavia TV’s brand and Italian market requirements. The result is a tightly integrated system that supports:
– HbbTV Application with full Italian localisation, Live TV, VOD, EPG and pre/mid/post‑roll ads
– Red Button Launcher for seamless broadcast‑to‑connected‑TV transitions
– L‑banner advertising triggered by live broadcast metadata
– Centralised CMS for live channels, VOD, events, transcoding, multi‑CDN delivery, FAST channels and analytics
– Audience measurement across HbbTV devices, providing verifiable data for advertisers

The project was delivered in two phases to minimise risk and accelerate time‑to‑value. Phase 1 provided immediate visibility with branding, backend configuration and CMS training. Phase 2 added linear broadcast advertising via L‑banner integration.

The platform leverages Sofia Digital’s Smart TV expertise, including DVB‑I service discovery, multi‑CDN delivery, integrated ad formats, built‑in transcoding and a measurement client verified across roughly 200 TV models in the company’s dedicated HbbTV testing lab.

For viewers, the result is a fully branded Smart TV experience with consistent playback across web and HbbTV. For Milano Pavia TV, the deployment delivers a new distribution channel, targeted advertising revenue, centralised content operations and reliable audience data for commercial partners.

Sofia Digital said the project showcases its ability to combine HbbTV, broadcast advertising and OTT delivery into a single managed platform – supported by 25 years of Smart TV expertise and full SLA‑backed cloud hosting.