Greece: pay-TV channel OTE to acquire the rights to broadcast the European Cups for 2015-2018

The Greek pay-TV group OTE TV will acquire the rights to broadcast, in Greece, the 2015-2018 Champions League and Europa League 2015-2018, according to several Greek media outlets on 04/10/2014. The amount of the acquisition is estimated at €40m (€35m for the Champions League and €5m for the Europa League).

OTE TV will acquire the rights to broadcast all the matches of the Europa League. Regarding the Champions League, however, the group will have the pay-TV rights to broadcast live of all the matches except one per week of the competition (Wednesday night match during the group stage) and the final, which must be assigned to a free-TV channel.

• The pay-TV Nova is the current rights holder (2012-2015) of the Champions League, with the 2015-2018 period to be held by OTE.
• The new Greek public broadcaster NERIT and the free-TV group ANT1 are still in contention for the Champions League free-TV lot in Greece, according to the Greek media outlet Contra, on 04/10/2014.
• Nova has about 500,000 TV subscribers, while OTE has about 320,000.