Sky Italia has agreed to buy the free-to-air channel MTV Italia from Viacom International Media Networks.
No financial details of the sale were disclosed. The deal, for the free-to-air MTV channel, will see Sky beginning to integrate existing MTV content with Sky Italia programming. This will include daily news from Sky TG24. MTV holds position #8 on the country’s digital terrestrail platform
Viacom acquired full control of MTV Italia, after Telecom Italia Media (TIM) sold its interest to the US-based broadcaster in September 2013.
Viacom remains active in the country with its barnds Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, and MTV Music. MTV Music is also available as a DTT channel. The broadcaster is also launching two new channels on Sky Italia, Teen Nick, which targets teens, will launch by the end of the year. And MTV Next, an interactive MTV channel, launched Saturday, August 1.
In a related development Viacom has acquired a 50% interest in Prism TV Private Limited, a regional network operator in India, for 9.4b rupees (about EUR145mi).
Prism TV owns and operates a number of entertainment channels, including ETV Marathi, ETV Kannada, ETV Bangla, ETV Oriya and ETV Gujarati. The company has been rebranding the channels under the Colors mark.
Viacom is executing the deal through its Nickelodeon Asia Holdings unit. The remaining half of Prism TV will be held by Network18, Viacom’s partner in its Viacom18 joint venture that operates ten channels in India, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Colors.
“This acquisition is an important step in building on our leadership position in India, a key market in Viacom’s international growth strategy,” said Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman in a statement.
