Advanced Television

Discovery, Sky Italia rebrand DTT channels

February 22, 2016

By Branislav Pekic in Rome

Discovery Italia and Sky Italia have rebranded two of their flagship general entertainment DTT channels in Italy.

Deejay TV, acquired last year by Discovery Italia from Italian multimedia group Espresso, has now changed its name to Nove Deejay. The change sees the channel retaining part of its name, but also adding the number of its channel on the national DTT network, Nine.

As widely anticipated, pay-TV operator Sky Italia has also changed the name of one ifs three free-to-air terrestrial TV channels. TV8 is the new name of MTV8 (previously MTV Italia), acquired last year from Viacom, thus ending any link with its former owner.

However, Viacom is still present on DTT in Italy with MTV Music and is launching the Paramount Channel later this month nationwide. In addition, several Viacom channels continue to be available to Sky Italia satellite subscribers,

The moves are seen as the latest attempt by foreign media groups to try to snatch viewers from the RAI-Mediaset terrestrial duopoly. The Italian free-to-air DTT market continues to attract investors, due to the low penetration of pay-TV and marginal growth due to the economic crisis.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTT/DSO