Italy: Premium Sport (Mediaset Group) ceases broadcasting, three years after its launch

Premium Sport, the pay-TV sports channel of the Italian media group Mediaset, has ceased broadcasting on 31/07/2018, three years after its launch.

In Italy, Premium Sport broadcast 248 of the 380 Serie A TIM matches (co-broadcast by the pay-TV group Sky Italia), the Champions League and Ligue 1 Conforama during the 2015-2018 cycle. Mediaset has not retained these rights for the 2018-2021 cycle.

Mediaset nevertheless retains its pay-TV offer, and continues to distribute the channels Eurosport 1 and 2 after a distribution agreement signed with the British group Perform to distribute the contents of its OTT platform DAZN, on 16/07/2018. Perform acquired the rights to broadcast 114 of the 380 Serie A games (three per matchday, see below), in Italy, over the 2018-2021 cycle, on 13/06/2018, as well as the broadcasting rights of all 472 games per season, including 428 exclusive Serie BKT matches, during the same period, on 29/06/2018.

• Mediaset owns four free-TV channels in Italy (Canale 5, Italia 1, Rete 4, Canale 20) upon which it broadcast the 64 matches of the 2018 World Cup.