Sony pulls out of Spanish DTT negotiations

After months of negotiations, Sony has decided to shelve plans to launch into Spain’s free-to-air DTT market, according to the story in Spanish language newspaper El Economista. A report in the paper says Sony has taken the decision because of the low audiences new DTT operators are attracting, and weak ad revenues in the market (ad investment in TV is estimated to have fallen 4.1% in Q1 2018).

As things stand, a number of DTT channels in Spain are still attracting less than 1% audience share and are yet to turn a profit. Although Sony would be able to control its programming costs by scheduling its own content, it is believed to have anticipated difficulties wresting ad revenues share from the dominant players Atresmedia and Mediaset.

In light of the decision, Sony will continue to focus on its Spanish PayTV channels AXN and AXN White, which air several leading US series such as The Good Doctor, Chicago Fire (pictured) and Criminal Minds.