The Croatian public broadcaster Hrvatska Radiotelevizija (HRT) has signed a multi-year agreement with Eutelsat on Hotbird in order to distribute its latest news, educational and entertainment channel HRT-HTV 5 to an international audience.
HRT-HTV 5 offers 24-hour programming in Croatian, as well as content in English, Spanish and German. It joins the 1,000 channels available via Hotbird to more than 135 million households in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Up until now, HRT has operated four terrestrial TV channels distributed via Eutelsat 16A in Croatia.
Commenting on the agreement, Kazimir Bacic, CEO of HRT, said: “The launch of HRT-HTV 5 reflects the vibrancy of Croatian broadcasting, in particular for news and other services. Our drive to share this with a wide national and international audience has been made possible thanks to satellite broadcasting via Hotbird, which was the obvious step in achieving this goal.”
Michel Azibert, chief commercial and development officer at Eutelsat, added: “We are delighted with HRT-HTV 5’s arrival on Hotbird, and through this with the new momentum given to our partnership with a renowned public broadcasting group such as HRT. This agreement once again shows the legitimacy of this leading position for broadcasters who wish to reach key audiences spread over a very large geographical area.”
