Vodafone will invest in exclusive content ‘if necessary’

Vodafone will invest in exclusive content “if we need to” despite having a preference for non-exclusive deals, and plans to expand its presence and the reach of its TV services in “marginal markets”, according to Nick Read, the company’s CFO and executive director.

Speaking to analysts after the company announced its year-end results last week, Read said that TV was important to Vodafone “because it makes converged offerings more appealing” and helped reduce churn.

Read said that premium content was “important to our offer” but that the company preferred non-exclusive deals where possible because “we don’t believe that exclusivity creates a lot of value for telcos in the long run”. However, he said, “If we need to bid for exclusivity in order to get it, we will, as we have done in a couple of markets”.

He said that Vodafone was “very happy” with its cloud-based TV platform, which is currently available in a number of markets. In Spain and Germany the operator has large legacy cable networks that use alternative TV systems. In Germany it recently launched the advanced GigaTV service for cable users.

Read said the cloud-based Vodafone TV platform was the company’s “most modern” TV service, offering cloud-based functionality and multiscreen availability of content. He said this could be launched “in marginal markets” at lower cost because it was a shared platform across the group.