Sky Italia continues to shrink TV offer
May 6, 2020
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Sky Italia continues to reduce the number of channels it is offering, at a time of great uncertainties for the pay-TV broadcaster due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since the start of May, it has ceased distribution of 8 TV channels – TeenNick, MTV Hits and MTV Rocks (from Viacom Italia); Disney Channel, Disney Channel +1, Disney Jr and Disney Jr +1 (from Disney) and Bike Channel (owned by Italy’s Reteconomy).
The latest channel casualties come after the pay-TV broadcaster stopped distributing 7 TV channels during the second half of 2019.
The move comes at a time when Sky Italia is already suffering from the lack of live sports content and a significant drop in advertising revenues.
In addition, Sky Italia is faced with increasing competition from on-demand services, such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV+ and Disney+, which are progressively taking away attractive programming such as movies and TV series.