Aiming at tackling piracy but also with an eye on the viability of pay TV, Cosmote TV and Nova entered into an agreement to exchange their sports channels.
As of the new sports season, which will start on August 23, Cosmote TV home subscribers will have access to the Novasports sports channels and Nova home subscribers to the Cosmote Sport channels, paying a small additional fee (for Cosmote TV 3 euros and for Nova from 1 euro depending on the subscription package).
The agreement does not concern professional subscriptions, i.e. all kinds of shops that pay subscriptions to the two platforms and with large screens offer sports events to their patrons, while it is open to the other platforms such as Antenna or Vodafone.
Illegal content
As emphasized by the executives of the two platforms, the agreement is a decisive step in dealing with piracy that is constantly spreading while contributing to the development of the pay-TV market.
Greece is the second country in Europe for viewing illegal sports content, according to data from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The efforts made to date to combat piracy (IP blocking, awareness campaigns, criminal repression) have not brought the desired result.
It is estimated that the pirate platforms number between 600,000 and 800,000 subscribers in Greece, while the legal Greek pay-TV platforms number 1,300,000. As a result, Greek subscription platforms have a total revenue loss of at least 125 million euros per year.
However, piracy also results in financial losses for the Greek state (VAT, income tax and other contributions) which are estimated at at least 75 million euros per year.