Tentpole

Tentpole is a worldwide subscription video on demand streaming service, owned jointly by the OWL Streaming Services division of OWL Ventures' OWL Media, and Vuori, with minority stakes held by The Eclipse Group and Pretzel Lake. Tentpole was formed though the merger of the majority of OWL's and Vuori's worldwide streaming service efforts.

It works as a catch-up service, as well as a subscription streaming platform, utilizing their proprietary streaming technology, as well as Krake's cloud services.

History
OWL Media announced to create a streaming service with the MGM library as a main feature early on. It would be handled by OWL Streaming Services, which recently acquired MGM On Demand Inc. during OWL's acquisition of MGM Holdings.

In August 2020, OWL Media merged the following streaming and VOD services into their new streaming service project: These services are set to close when the project finishes initial development.
 * Laugh Out Loud,
 * Tribeca Shortlist,
 * Shudder,
 * Epix On Demand and Epix HD (online streaming),
 * Vu!,
 * OCS,
 * Showmax,
 * Eros Now,
 * Yahoo! Screen,
 * Acorn TV,
 * BIGFlix,
 * Pantaya,
 * Stargate Command,​
 * and IFC Films Unlimited

In September 2020, Vuori, Pretzel Lake and The Eclipse Group were announced as new shareholders in Tentpole LLC, the company founded as a dedicated unit for Tentpole streaming service and its original programming. This also meant Tentpole was now expanding more into Europe and North America, as well as to Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, as Vuori decided to merge the following streaming services and related assets into the company: This new shift in strategy also meant that all Vuori and OWL owned channels would adopt Tentpole as their first-party streaming platform. This also brought original programming from these services, especially PlayStation Vue, Viaplay and iflix, into the new platform. However, this also meant the company also discontinued the development on Roku OS and set the Roku Channel to close after Tentpole has launched; this prompted Vuori to discontinue the Roku Players officially and continue them under their open source development program.
 * ​​UMC​, SundanceNow, Discovery Kids Play, Joyn, Dplay, Player.pl, 6play, ​Spuul​, ​iflix​, ​icflix​, Viaplay & Viafree, HIDIVE and Anime Network VOD
 * Krake's Streaming Service Development Group (including MultiChoice Group/MNet Group's digital media assets, Roku, the former PlayStation Vue, Rings.TV and Loops Live) - their offices in Los Gatos and San Jose were merged into a new office in Mountain View

In December 2020, Tentpole LLC and United Artists announced to start co-bidding for new original films as well as exclusive international distribution rights, in order to boost Tentpole's indie offerings. The same month, Crown Cellular, Qualis and Hoot announced to offer Tentpole Premium to their customers at a cheaper price ($3.99/€3.99 per month for Standard, $8.99/€8.99 per month for premium) than newcomers (see section Tiers).

Tiers

 * Tentpole Free: A successor to the Viafree streaming service, this ad-supported tier offers rental or purchase of any Tentpole original film or show at $6/€6 each for a film, and $15/€15 for a season of a show. They also offer "Tentpole Free Samples" programming, targeted to lure newcomers in with enticing offering. Tentpole Free Samples are not to be confused with Tentpole Originals. They also allow access to a catch up service for channels owned by Vuori and OWL.
 * Tentpole Standard ($4.99/€4.99 per month): A paid tier, allowing up to 1080p HD streaming on 5 devices, as well as access to Tentpole Originals (not including live and VR programming), a catch up service and a la carte channels.
 * Tentpole Premium ($11/€11 per month): A full-fledged tier, allowing up to 4K UHD streaming on unlimited devices, as well as access to a la carte channels and all programming, including live and VR programming.

Programming
Initially launched with the MGM Library as the selling point of the service, OWL later reached streaming agreements with its longtime business partners Vuori, Eclipse, and Pretzel Lake, to provide, develop and produce content for the service.

Tentpole intends to also feature local content as well as content made by or aimed at minority groups. Their original programming include programming made by The Flama, a comedy group part of Vuori's Styhon Digital Studios. Originally, they were working on an over-the-top network, until their parent company Univision was acquired in 2020. The inclusion of The Flama's programming is meant to attract the Latino diaspora.

Their sports programming includes ZSports, formerly part of iflix.

They have deals with and  (which Vuori owns a stake on) to move most of their films and shows to Tentpole.

A la carte and "personal channels"
Aside from Tentpole's original and acquired programming, they also are testing an aggregator feature at launch, offering add-on channels "a la carte" style (like ​Apple TV Channels​ and ​Amazon Channels​); their first partners include Showtime, CBS All Access, and ​Britbox​ (which Vuori owns a minority stake in). One of the a la carte channels includes MGM's own MGM Sci-Fi linear channel, which used to be part of the Roku platform. This Tentpole feature is the successor to Roku OS and The Roku Channel.

Their a la carte offerings also include proprietary offerings (which used to be streaming services): Laugh Out Loud - operated with HartBeat Digital - and Tribeca Shortcut - operated with Tribeca Enterprises.

Tentpole is also set to test a feature during its launch, called "personal channels", inspired by Roku's channel creation kit, which would allow developers to create their own channels within the platform. If it proves to be successful, it may become a permanent feature, but if not, it will be discontinued and "open sourced" along with the Roku platform and Roku OS.

Special programming
Following Krake SSDG's merger into Tentpole LLC, the company's technology team decided to take on adding compatibility with live programming, as well as virtual reality, for both browser and mobile versions.