Telefonica into content production
October 6, 2011
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spain’s Telefonica, operator of the IPTV service Imagenio with almost 800,000 subscribers, is entering into the production TV business following its agreement with pubcaster RTVE to develop several entertainment and cultural TV programmes.
The deal has already borne fruit with the release of the first TV productions: “Entre dos aguas” a documentary about music, and “Yo de mayor quiero ser español” about Spaniards succeeding in other countries. Also, the TV production “La nube (The Cloud)” about social networks and Internet is now underway.
The agreement with RTVE comes soon after Telefonica announced that it will use Microsoft’s Xbox console as a TV set-top-box for the distribution of TV services. The use of Xbox 360 as a TV set-top-box will allow users to hold play, rewind, record and benefit from the hard disc integrated into the console, adding new services.
Thanks to this deal with Microsoft, Telefónica will be able to break into new devices and a new market where Microsoft ranks second after Nintendo and ahead of Sony with a turnover in Spain of €1.245 billion last year.