BSkyB is to launch its internet service Now TV on Tuesday, with the aim of taking on rivals such as Netflix and LoveFilm, offering movies for £15 a month or up to £3.49 per view.

The service, which will launch this week on PC, Mac and some Android smartphones, will initially only offer Sky Movies content at launch with access to 600 films and 11 channels.

However a typically aggressive rollout plan will see Sky Sports content including Premier League, cricket, rugby and golf before the end of the year, as well as channels including Sky1, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic.

Now TV will be priced at £15 a month for customers who want to access Sky Movies content, with a "pay and play" option of selecting individual films from 99p to £3.49.

"We are targeting the 13m non-pay TV households out there with a no commitment, no contract way of delivering Sky content they want in a dip in and dip out way," said BSkyB managing director of sales and marketing Stephen van Rooyen. "The whole idea is to have something 'not Sky', it is purposely designed to attract new customers."

BSkyB intends to roll out the availability of Now TV rapidly to other devices including iPhone, iPad, Microsoft Xbox and Roku, while the company is also in discussions to bring it to the PlayStation 3.

It will also be available via YouView, which will marry Freeview with on-demand content via broadband, when it finally launched later this month.

While Now TV will offer a much cheaper way for non-Sky customers to access its film content – currently the cheapest TV package with films that BSkyB offers costs £37.50.

However, the £15 monthly subscription price point is considerably more expensive than US rival Netflix and Amazon-owned LoveFilm, which are targeting customers from £5 to £7.

"The most important thing to look at is what the service is, the quality of what we are delivering, we don't want to replicate what LoveFilm and Netflix have done," said van Rooyen. "We offer around 75% of the top 100 box office movies, and have rights to offer films a year before rivals – the value is in the premium quality we have."

In May, the competition regulator said that there was no need to curb BSkyB's virtual monopoly of UK pay-TV film rights to air Hollywood blockbusters first.

BSkyB intends to launch a major advertising push to promote Now TV later this year, when more content is available and it is accessible on more devices, with the London Olympics period ruled out for launching a campaign because "the nation is distracted".

source: guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/16/sky-netflix-now-tv