Premiere loses Disney exclusivity

chris

Disney Channel has amended its distribution strategy in Germany, with pay-TV platform Premiere no longer enjoying binding exclusivity.

The family-oriented channel is now also available on Deutsche Telekom’s IPTV platform Entertain, operated on its ADSL broadband networks.

At the same time, Toon Disney and Playhouse Disney have been added to the package. As opposed to Disney Channel, Walt Disney Company has pursued a different distribution strategy with the sister services which, from their launch in 2004, have not been tied to Premiere exclusively, but are being offered as part of subscription packages operated by various pay-TV operators such as Kabel Deutschland, Kabel BW, Premiere Star and aonTV.

The move came as no surprise, as Walt Disney has been considering dumping Disney Channel’s exclusive binding to Premiere since May 2006 in order to make the channel available to subscribers on other platforms. “We don’t know if exclusivity is always right,” said Disney Channel’s head Rich Ross at the time.

The three channels form part of the package Entertainment Premium, available for €69.95 per month. Disney has provided films from its studios Walt Disney, Buena Vista and Pixar for Telekom’s online video library since March 2007. “We are pleased to be able to extend our successful partnership with Walt Disney Company to our IPTV offering by adding high quality, child-friendly content to Entertain’s TV bouquet,” said Telekom’s senior marketing manager Christian P. Illek.

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