German media company ProSiebenSat.1 has signed a multi-year TV rights contract with Hollywood studio Disney.
The agreement of which financial details have not been disclosed covers new movies and series produced by Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel and ABC Studios. In addition to the free-to-air TV rights, it also contains selected exclusive pay-TV and subscription video-on-demand (maxdome) rights.
The package comprises movies like Captain America: Civil War, The Jungle Book, the Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory and future Star Wars films. Also included are series like Quantico, Code Black and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders as well as older movies such as Frozen and Monsters, Inc.
With the new contract ProSiebenSat.1 outrivals competing media group Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland whose channels used to show the Disney productions. 2012 it has been the other way round: RTL snapped the Disney package away from ProSiebenSat.1.
In Q3 2015, ProSiebenSat.1 increased its revenues by 17.2% to €747.1 million compared with Q3 2014. The recurring EBITDA rose by 9.1% to €177.8 million while the underlying net income grew by 4.8% to €78.3 million.
HDTV gains significance as a revenue source: The number of viewers signed up for reception of the fee-based HD versions of ProSiebenSat.1’s free-to-air TV channels climbed by 18% to 6 million. The Munich-based company expects the figure to rise to more than 9 million HD users by 2018.
