Following their tough fight over football TV rights, which has gone as far as involving Courts actions, Mediapro, the main shareholder in the commercial TV channel La Sexta and owner of pay TV channel Gol TV, and Prisa, owner of pay TV channel Canal Plus, are again the main figures in a fierce battle to lead the premium TV channels market.

With over 1.5 million subscribers and expecting to reach 2 million in 2011, football TV channel Gol TV is now challenging the leadership of Canal Plus as the premium channel with a highest penetration with 1.7 million customers. At the moment, Gol TV almost doubles the number of 800,000 subscribers to Prisa-owned Canal + Liga, channel specifically dedicated to the Spanish Football League.

Out of its over 1.5 million subscribers, around 345,000, 23 per cent, get Gol TV through DTT; 46 per cent through IPTV, 13 per cent via cable and 18 per cent through mobile TV.

Mediapro is finalising an application to make Gol TV available on tablets such as iPad. “We want to distribute football through all possible windows”, said Jaume Roures, president of Mediapro. “We have shown that it is possible offering quality football at a good price at any time, any place and under any format”, he concluded

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