Films and TV Series from Warner Bros. Available on “Mediaset Premium” for Many Years to Come
(June 8, 2015 – Italy) – A new multi-year agreement has been reached that will guarantee to the Mediaset Group rights in Italy to the films and TV series of the top international major: Warner Bros. International Television Distribution. This new agreement also extends important digital rights to Mediaset across several platforms including: free-to-air TV, pay TV (including satellite), advertising-supported on-demand (including online) of a limited number of recent episodes giving viewers the ability to “catch-up.”
The agreement includes films that will get their first exclusive TV screenings on Mediaset channels including: “American Sniper,” “Interstellar” and many more. Among the TV series, the major owns titles such as “The Big Bang Theory,” “Arrow,” “Flash,” “Person of Interest,” “The Mentalist” and “Friends,” plus all of the new series planned for the coming years. The deal also provides the rights to several globally-recognized films and film franchises including “Harry Potter,” “Batman,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Troy.”
“With this agreement, the Mediaset Group confirms its commitment to long-term investments in exclusive content oriented to the future, the content that makes the difference among the competing offerings. In this way Mediaset puts itself increasingly at the centre of international interests related to the convergence between video content and broadband Internet,” said Franco Ricci, CEO of Mediaset Premium. “Warner Bros. accounts for approximately 25% of total U.S. production of films and TV series and also in Italy the film titles distributed by the company are enjoying growing success and in 2014 they achieved box office leadership in our country."
"We are pleased to have done such a comprehensive deal with Mediaset," said Jeffrey R. Schlesinger, President, Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution. "Mediaset has been our partner in Italy for a very long time and we are pleased to continue the relationship providing our shows a great and successful home on their channels. This deal is a strong testament to the popularity of high quality feature films and television series and signifies how important our product is to audiences in Italy."
Mediaset has consequently qualitatively and quantitatively reinforced the 2015-2018 offer of its pay TV platform Mediaset Premium, already a leader in football with all of the matches of the top eight Series A teams and exclusive coverage of the Champions League for the next three years.
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