Nova TV testing interest in premium sports OTT

Bulgarian broadcaster Nova TV is attempting to gauge consumer interest in premium OTT TV via its launch of Gong.bg Play, a premium live sports service it recently launched and which currently has 8,000 active subscribers.

Speaking at Digital TV CEE in Budapest, Dimitar Radev, head of content distribution and new platforms at Nova, said 8,000 users had downloaded the app for the service, with 30,000 regular users paying for content on a subscription or transactional basis.

Gong.bg Play is an SVOD/TVOD platform co-branded with Netfino’s sports portal Gong.bg. This delivers premium live sports to which Nova TV Bulgaria owns the rights. It is accessible on desktops, tablets and smartphones. Radev said that the service currently has limited functionality but is being used to gauge consumer interest in subscription live OTT sports.

Nova already offers a catch-up service, Nova Play, with 500,000 monthly users. It currently records 4.8 million average monthly video views, making it “a successful AVOD implementation”, according to Radev.

“People find it convenient to get access to live football by paying via SMS,” he said. “This is an experimental product. It is a proof of concept that is showing some potential.”

The service is priced at 20% above Nova’s linear premium sports subscription, sold via pay TV providers.