The Czech incumbent telco O2 has acquired the broadcasting rights for the UEFA Champions League, including the semi final and final matches, for the next three seasons.
As a result, from this September it will show 130 matches, except for one game played on Tuesdays.
O2 is currently developing its own sports channel, which will be overseen by Marek Kindernay.
He previously launched Galaxie Sport (later renamed Nova Sport) and Fanda while at CET-21 and was also the director of the Nova Sport, Fanda and MTV channels.
Meanwhile, Anna Lenerová will remain responsible for the acquisition of new channels and sports broadcasting rights for O2 TV.
As of last month, the latter had 184,000 subscribers, or 4,000 more than two months earlier.
It has been boosted by the recent launch of the O2TV Go service, which has already been downloaded 240,000 times.
Commenting on the acquisition of the Champions League rights, David Duron, director of marketing for the household segment at O2, said:
“The year of 2014 was a really good one for O2 TV. The number of subscribers increased by 20%, while we launched O2TV Go for everyone, with the application having been downloaded more than 240,000 times so far. We have also entered the world of delivering exclusive content for the service. Our existing Premier League match broadcasts will be joined by UEFA Champions League ties starting with the upcoming season.
“We are bringing a whole new dimension to watching football as our subscribers will be able to select their preferred tie on each match day. All the Tuesday and Wednesday matches together with the final will thus create the broadest football offer on the market. We have chosen football to showcase all the excellent functions on offer with our O2 TV technology”.
