The announcement to launch its streaming service discovery+ in Germany via a partnership with Vodafone puts Discovery in a tight spot.
In Germany, Discovery already operates local streaming platform Joyn together with ProSiebenSat.1. It seems unlikely that Discovery will operate two streaming services in Germany that compete with each other. This raises the question whether Discovery will withdraw from Joyn.
The decision-making process seems to be still underway, as Discovery remains rather cautious about this issue. “The global roll-out of discovery+ and associated partnerships are another milestone in Discovery’s strategy to focus more on digital distribution channels and D2C offerings,” a spokeswoman for Discovery Communications Deutschland told Broadband TV News.
“In Germany, we already have an OTT offering in the market with Joyn, our joint venture with P7S1. We are looking at the product possibilities of discovery+ and examining whether and in what form this could make sense in German-speaking countries in the future,” the spokeswoman said. “We’ve been having a strong partnership with Vodafone in Germany for a long time, which we were able to expand in June with a line-up of programmes in UHD resolution for Vodafone GigaTV customers.”
It thus remains unclear how the involvement in Joyn will continue. No doubt, it would be in the interest of customers and partners if Discovery takes a clear position on this soon.
