Deutsche Telekom and Plazamedia will continue their cooperation for production and playout services over the next four years.
As part of the renewed partnership, Plazamedia will extend its service portfolio for Deutsche Telekom. The scope of the production agreement includes Plazamedia taking over interior production for Telekom from the 2024/25 to the 2027/28 season.
The agreement includes interior production in football for the 3rd German League, the Women’s Bundesliga and in ice-hockey for the games of the German Ice Hockey League (Deutsche Eishockey Liga, DEL) and international games of the German national men’s team of the German Ice Hockey Federation (Deutscher Eishockey-Bund, DEB). In basketball, the collaboration covers all EuroLeague and EuroCup matches in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons.
Plazamedia has been working as a cooperation partner for Telekom since August 2019 and implements more than 1,400 live broadcasts per season for linear TV and online/OTT services as part of the MagentaSport offering. Plazamedia is currently also strongly involved in preparations for the biggest sport event on Deutsche Telekom’s TV platform MagentaTV this year: the 2024 European Football Championship in Germany. The production company based in Ismaning near Munich is providing services and playout for all 51 live matches on three MagentaTV channels for the UEFA Euro 2024.
“We are delighted to continue our long-standing collaboration with Plazamedia. In doing so, we are creating continuity and are relying on proven quality. The requirements for sports broadcasts in our extensive MagentaSport portfolio and for major football events such as the upcoming UEFA Euro 2024 on MagentaTV have increased significantly in recent years. As the leading digital company in Europe, we want to continue to lead the way as a driver of innovation in an increasingly digitised environment. Our brands should stand for excellent and innovative sports coverage. We are convinced that with Plazamedia we have the right partner at our side,” said Arnim Butzen, Head of TV at Deutsche Telekom.
Jens Friedrichs, Chairman of the Management Board of Plazamedia, added: ”With our offer, we were once again able to convince Telekom of Plazamedia’s performance, innovative strength and sustainability. We will continue and further expand our successful partnership until at least 2028 – we are already in the process of implementing the major joint project UEFA Euro 2024. We would like to thank them for their trust and look forward to continuing our journey together.”
Deutsche Telekom’s MagentaTV will show all UEFA Euro 2024 matches live from June 14 to July 14 and present an extensive range of programmes. Plazamedia is providing the playout for the three Magenta Euro 2024 channels Fußball.TV 1-3 and associated services from a single source. This includes the planning and technical concept, the required production technology and the production staff. Production will take place in UHD HDR and HD SDR formats. In addition, various streaming formats are produced, recorded and archived for external rights holders. In total, more than 40 signal paths have to be controlled.
The cooperation between Plazamedia and Telekom, which has now been extended, also includes the commission to implement up to 1,400 live matches of various sports for linear TV every year. This includes the live broadcasting of individual matches and conferences, as well as the recording and management of all linear non-live elements (replays, highlights, slomo playouts). It also includes operational personnel and multifunctional IP production units for handling live productions with commentary, graphics and content feeds, as well as the provision of conference control rooms for the implementation of conference broadcasts and a central media asset management platform. These services are supplemented by the signal management service: All content relevant to production is received centrally via satellite, fibre-optic or streaming signals at the Ismaning site. The same applies to the delivery of broadcast signals to the Telekom headend and third-party utilisers.
