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Author: Dan Bieler
On 13 July, German pay-TV channel Premiere and Unity Media, holders of the Bundesliga football rights, agreed that Premiere can show Bundesliga games after all. The deal does not cover all of Germany, but only the 13 regions that are covered by Germany's leading cable operator, Kabel Deutschland. In the three remaining regions, where cable operators ish/iesy and Kabel BW are active, Premiere customers must order and pay for Bundesliga games separately, but can watch the games on their existing Premiere set-top boxes.
Comment: Just when you thought you had got your head around the complexities of Germany's pay-TV market, along comes another shake-up. The deal between Premiere and Unity Media is a remarkable turnaround for Premiere, which early in the year had lost its exclusive live transmission rights for Bundesliga games. Since then, its shares halved in value as mass cancellations of subscriptions looked like a distinct possibility.
This situation has now changed. Many of Premiere's customers can now view the Bundesliga games under similar conditions as before. This should help reduce churn. Premiere offers channel bundles from €9.99 per month up to €35 per month. The Bundesliga package, which can be ordered separately, is charged at €14.90. The Bundesliga package is effectively a reselling product. There is no requirement to buy a basic Premiere bundle in order to be able to receive the Bundesliga package.
However, the big difference is that the exclusive nature of the Bundesliga soccer matches has gone for Premiere. This is because in Germany there are about 16m satellite TV users in addition to the 19m cable TV subscribers. Under the Unity Media broadcasting rights, Bundesliga soccer matches can be broadcast to satellite subscribers. Thus, Premiere is likely to find it harder to attract new subscribers going forward.
In a separate development, Germany's regional media authorities stated that Deutsche Telekom does not need a broadcasting licence to offer German Bundesliga soccer matches over the Internet. Deutsche Telekom is currently in the process of launching its triple-play offering based on VDSL ahead of the beginning of the Bundesliga season on 11 August. With Deutsche Telekom having become another important player in the German soccer TV game, the consumer might have the last laugh, with better deals being thrown onto the market by all providers.
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