Cirkus, the S-VOD service that offers viewers the best of British TV series, has reached a distribution agreement with Boxer, the Nordic DTT platform.
Boxer is the third largest pay TV platform in Sweden with nearly 600,000 subscribers, and some 350,000 subscribers in Denmark. The deal gives Boxer the right to distribute Cirkus in both countries, with Cirkus launching in Sweden first towards the end of this year. Cirkus has already announced that it has reached agreement for distribution with Sweden’s largest pay TV platform operator, Com Hem.
Cirkus is the brainchild of two experienced British television executives, Hugh Williams and Mark Bradford. It has multi-year supply agreements with ITV Global Entertainment, BBC Worldwide and All3Media International and has been conceived to help international pay TV platforms fend off the threat from new OTT services such as Netflix.
It offers its customers high quality British drama, comedy and factual programmes in ‘box set’ form with all the content refreshed on a regular monthly basis. Boxer subscribers will now have access to a range of UK TV programmes including ‘Endeavour’; ‘Luther’; ‘Sherlock’; ‘Accused’; ‘Fresh Meat’ and ‘Blue Planet’.
For Cirkus, Hugh Williams said in a statement: “This is a key deal for us. We now have distribution on both the biggest and third biggest pay TV platforms in Sweden with an additional option to launch in Denmark later. Cirkus is now a reality and will be available to Swedish viewers by the end of this year. We expect Cirkus to be rolled out in other Nordic territories during 2014.
Andrea Gisle Joosen, the CEO for Boxer in Sweden, added: ‘We’re very pleased to have reached an agreement with Cirkus, allowing us to give our on demand-customers an even better viewing experience.’
