Mediaset agrees partnership with Sky Italia

Friday, March 30th, 2018
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Mediaset – Sky Italia Agreement

  • Mediaset, Cinema and Serie Premium channels agreement with Sky Italia
  • Cooperation on the Mediaset Premium DTT platform

COLOGNO MONZESE — An agreement was reached today between Mediaset and Sky Italia that foresees benefits for both companies; expanding the reach of Mediaset Premium content and channels, on one side and increasing the availability of high-quality content for Sky subscribers, on the other side.

Premium’s Cinema and Serie channels will become available for all Sky Italia subscribers, generating an increase in the audience with a positive impact on Mediaset’s advertising revenues.

In addition, the two Groups will start a cooperation that will extend to Sky Italia the use of Premium’s pay TV platform on digital terrestrial. Thanks to Premium’s technology, this means that the satellite operator will be able to provide its pay TV offer also on DTT through a supply contract for technical and commercial services.

Overall, today’s agreement will enable Mediaset to become a content provider on all platforms, including satellite, and to create additional value from Premium pay TV platform.

Today’s agreement represent also also a new step forward to the execution of the “Mediaset 2020” strategic guidelines presented to the financial market in January 2017, aimed to increase the focus on FTA core business, local content production and digital.

Moreover, in the view of accelerating further the implementation of the 2020 guidelines, Mediaset could evaluate the opportunity of enlarging the scope of the partnership with Sky Italia on the DTT digital platform achieving additional synergy and economic benefits in the near future. In this respect, Mediaset has obtained from Sky Italia a right to sell (at its own discretion) at the end of 2018, the entire stake of the new company resulting from the contribution, prior the execution of the sale, of the Premium pay TV platform.

Should Mediaset decide to exercise this option, the transfer of the Newco to Sky Italia would take place immediately and the operation would naturally be subject to the approval of the competent authorities (AGCM and AGCOM).

The possible exercise of the option will not have any impact on the Mediaset Premium activity that will keep on managing its own pay TV offer and customer base.

In conclusion, the agreements reached today between Mediaset and Sky Italia ensure that both companies will enjoy a number of benefits. In fact, with this operation, both operators will achieve optimisations that guarantee new multi-platform scope and much wider access for their respective customers to high-quality TV products.