German pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland will launch an OTT service for sports fans in Switzerland.
A Sky Deutschland spokesman confirmed the plans to Broadband TV News. “We are currently in talks about this and will announced further details in future,” he added.
The OTT service will complement Sky Deutschland’s presence in Switzerland. Swiss pay-TV broadcaster Teleclub, a subsidiary of national telco Swisscom, has been offering Sky Deutschland’s channels to Swiss households via cable, satellite and IPTV for years.
However, its competitor UPC, Switzerland’s largest cable operator, recently snapped away from Teleclub the rights to show the games of German football league Bundesliga transmitted by Sky and will screen the matches exclusively via cable and IPTV in Switzerland from the 2017/18 season starting in August 2017.
Teleclub managed to secure a deal with Discovery Networks Deutschland to show the Bundesliga games transmitted by Eurosport in Switzerland, but this will only cover 45 matches per season, and not, as in previous years, the complete range of games.
The majority of Bundesliga games will be screened by UPC on its new sports channel MySports from the 2017/18 season through the agreement with Sky Deutschland.
Notably, Sky Deutschland’s Swiss OTT sports service, launching in August 2017, will include its Bundesliga coverage, as indicated by the already activated Swiss Sky Sport sites on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, providing Swiss sports fans with an alternative way to watch the games. A dedicated Swiss website is under preparation at www.sky.ch.
