Greece’s Cosmote TV will not renew its cooperation with Discovery Group as discussions between the two parties have not led to a mutually acceptable agreement.
As a result, reports Digital TV Info, viewers of the pay-TV service face the prospect of no longer being able to watch eight channels from Discovery’s portfolio, namely Discovery HD Showcase, Discovery Channel, Discovery Science HD, IDX HD, Animal Planet HD, Eurosport 1HD, Eurosport 2, and TLC.
It adds that Cosmote TV plans to replace these channels with 10-12 high-quality new ones. They include BBC Earth, Crime and Investigation, CBS Reality, Outdoor Channel, Viasat Explore, Viasat Nature, the Nautical Channel, the Food Network, Fine Living and Fox Sports. Talks are also ongoing to introduce around two more channels.
As previously reported by Broadband TV News, Discovery has been involved in a number of carriage disputes with operators. Most recently, Sweden’s Com Hem and Boxer withdrew Kanal 5, Kanal 9, Eurosport and Discovery-branded channels from their cable and DTT offers respectively on August 31.
Cosmote TV is operated by the Deutsche Telekom-backed Greek incumbent OTE and has just over 500,000 subscribers.