DAZN channel on Sky Italia?
August 7, 2019
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
OTT sports broadcaster DAZN is in talks with Sky Italia to launch a TV channel on the satellite pay-TV platform.
According to a report in La Repubblica, the negotiations are close to completion, although several details, such as costs and conditions for Sky subscribers, still need to be ironed out. The satellite TV channel would air the best of DAZN’s programming, including one Saturday night Serie A match.
The Italian daily also says that DAZN is negotiating with TIM to offer its content on its IPTV service TIMVision.
DAZN owns the Italian TV rights to three of the ten weekly matches of Italy’s Serie A, as well as for other football championships such as the Liga, Ligue 1, FA Cup, EFL League Cup, Eredivisie and Championship, Major League Soccer, Japan’s J1 League and the Chinese Super League.
Meanwhile, Italy’s Serie A has announced the launch of an anti-piracy campaign to contrast a phenomenon that, it claims, involves over 5 million Italians. It estimates the lost turnover for all sectors of the economy at over €1 billion, with almost 6,000 jobs at risk.
The professional football league is planning a range of actions, from raising awareness of fans and citizens, to speeding up the blocking of pirate IPTV operators by ISPs and Hosting companies and requesting authorities to introduce more severe penalties.