Early Extension: Sky Deutschland and Warner Bros. International Television Distribution Continue Their Successful Cooperation
(October 29, 2014 – Unterföhring, Germany) – Today Sky Deutschland and Warner Bros. International Television Distribution (WBITD) announced that they have agreed to an early extension of their cooperation for several more years. The long-term contract between Sky and Germany’s top film distributor includes on demand rights for all current new movies during the pay-TV window as well as exclusive pay-TV rights to all Warner movies across several platforms. Film fans will be able to continue enjoying exclusive access to the most recent cinema blockbusters from Warner as television premieres on Sky. Upcoming highlights include films such as “Interstellar,” “Horrible Bosses 2,” “Magic in the Moonlight,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Der Nanny” from Matthias Schweighöfer.
Content will also be available whenever and wherever subscribers want it via non-linear services Sky Go and Sky Anytime. In addition to current first broadcasting rights, Sky is acquiring exclusive pay-TV rights to a comprehensive package of high quality library films including rights for Sky Go and Sky Anytime.
Gary Davey, Executive Vice President, Programming at Sky Deutschland: “Warner Bros. has been one of Sky’s closest and strongest partners for years. And now we’re pleased to announce a multi-year extension. We would like to thank Warner for its trust and look forward to continuing this successful cooperation. In the future, film fans will be able to keep on enjoying the wide-ranging movie offering that is only available on Sky.”
"We are incredibly pleased to be continuing our long-standing relationship with Sky Deutschland," said Jeffrey R. Schlesinger, President, Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution. "As our television business continues to evolve and consumer behaviors shift to include more options for viewing our content, it is important to have a smart, sophisticated and marketing-savvy partner like Sky in Germany and Austria to showcase our films in the first pay TV window.”
About Sky Deutschland:
Sky Deutschland AG is the leading pay-TV provider in Germany and Austria with more than 3.8 million subscribers and revenues amounting to 1.7 billion Euros. The MDAX-listed company offers subscription television as well as on-demand services for private and business customers.
The Sky platform comprises up to 80 exclusive channels, almost all of which are also available in HD. The program portfolio of Sky includes live sports together with the only German 24/7 sports news channel Sky Sport News HD, feature films, series, children's programs and documentaries. The Sky+ hard disk receiver allows for time-shifted television and the Sky Anytime on-demand service enables customers to enjoy hundreds of constantly changing titles. Sky Go, the leading online TV in Germany, provides access to Sky programming via mobile devices and PCs. Moreover, the online media library Snap by Sky offers thousands of titles – among them blockbusters, classic films, complete series box sets and children's programs.
Sky is the innovation leader in the German and Austrian television markets. In the past two decades, Sky has played a major role in establishing pay-TV as the third pillar of television entertainment alongside fee-financed and advertising-financed broadcasters. Sky has 2,500 employees and is based in Unterföhring near Munich.
About Warner Bros. International Television Distribution:
Warner Bros. International Television Distribution is one of the world's largest distributors of feature films, television programs and animation to the international television marketplace (broadcast, pay cable, basic cable, satellite, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, digital platforms, etc.). It licenses some 61,000 hours of programming (including more than 6,500 features and 3,000 television programs, comprised of tens of thousands of individual episodes), dubbed or subtitled in more than 40 languages, to telecasters and cablecasters in more than 175 countries.
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