TV streaming provider Zattoo and German public broadcaster ARD have expanded their partnership, enabling users to access the ARD Mediathek within the Zattoo app through direct app-to-app linking.
German viewers can browse ARD recommendations and highlights on Zattoo’s platform, search for ARD content, and then jump seamlessly into the ARD Mediathek – and back to Zattoo again – with a single click.
The new feature works across web browsers, Apple and Android devices, including Amazon Fire TV, with further smart-TV integrations to follow. It marks the first time that ARD has implemented its linking model, previously used on device-based TV platforms, with a pure streaming app.
“Future-oriented and user-friendly offerings are at the core of our strategy,” said Roger Elsener, CEO of Zattoo. “We are delighted to extend our long-standing and trusted partnership with ARD. This marks another important step toward our vision of being the leading platform through which viewers can enjoy all their favourite content simply and flexibly.”
ARD Chairman Florian Hager called the new integration “a real breakthrough”: “We’re pleased that Zattoo users can now directly discover the latest news, documentaries, films and series from the ARD Mediathek. This shows what cooperation at eye level can look like.”
Zattoo has been carrying ARD’s live channels since 2008, but the latest agreement goes further by connecting the public broadcaster’s on-demand library directly with Zattoo’s interface.
Observers in the German media industry see the move as a clear signal of how cooperation between broadcasters and streaming platforms can work under existing legal frameworks – and as a contrast to the more contentious approach taken by ProSiebenSat.1 with its own platform, Joyn.
Earlier this year, Joyn integrated ARD and ZDF content without prior approval, embedding their public service Mediatheken directly on its platform. Both broadcasters objected and took legal action, arguing that the method infringed their rights as content owners. After just four weeks, the “beta test”, as ProSiebenSat.1 called it, was discontinued.
While Joyn’s Markus Breitenecker described embedding as a “special form of linking” permissible under EU law, ARD continues to insist on a cooperative model based on transparent app-to-app linking – the very principle now realised with Zattoo.
The partnership also comes as Germany’s upcoming new national media law is expected to define clearer rules for how commercial and public media services can interlink content. By choosing the linking route rather than embedding, Zattoo and ARD may have provided a blueprint for how such cooperation could function.
