Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton says the channel having conversations in several markets as to where the it should be packaged.
“If you look at our business in France, where traditionally we had a really high audience, we did a deal with Canal Plus, where Canal now distribute us exclusively and effectively that’s moved us into a premium tier, which is miles away from where we are in Germany where we have a free-to-air sports channel with huge enormous reach,” Hutton told the Broadcasting Press Guild.
“You have to base an economic model on each individual territory. Maybe you go exclusive with one operator in one market, but you’re across everybody in another. That’s a change for Eurosport too because historically we’ve been about being on every platform and very much invasive.”
Hutton said that the acquisition by Discovery brought with it a local office in every country that understood the operators and the dynamic and brought a portfolio of a dozen channels as part of the negotiation.
Eurosport is already bundled with Discovery to operators in some markets.
“I think as a channel we’ve really risen in value to our audience and our pay-TV business partners over the last couple of years and that’s a decent achievement and not something I see slowing down,” said Hutton.
Yesterday, Broadband TV News reported Eurosport 1 has commenced offering its linear TV channel as a free-of-charge live-stream on the internet in Germany.
