Media

MTV to stop being free in Germany

By | Published on Thursday 7 October 2010

MTV has announced that its main German channel will only be available via subscription-based digital TV platforms from 2011. Currently the music channel is available free-to-air in Germany, unlike here in the UK where only the MTV-owned Viva channel is available on Freeview. Viva, which began life as an independent music station in Germany, will continue to be free there also.

MTV owners Viacom say the move in Germany is a bid to kickstart the “growth in the landscape of subscriber services”. I’m not quite sure what that means, and given viewers won’t subscribe to the MTV service directly, but via long established subscription-based TV services, I’m not quite sure how big a change to the “pay-TV landscape” the move will create. Will MTV alone really make anyone who has previously shunned pay-TV sign up? More likely MTV is struggling to cover the costs of running two channels through ad sales alone, so is desperately looking to increase the revenues it gets from the digital telly networks.

Interestingly, the move in Germany is the opposite to the music channel’s recent strategy in Spain, where MTV recently went free to air in a bid to increase viewer figures fivefold and drive up ad sales.



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