Mediaset agrees distribution of free channels on Sky platform

Italian broadcaster Mediaset has made its flagship service Canale 5 available on Sky’s satellite platform after an absence of three years, the first step in making all free-to-air Mediaset channels available via the pay TV broadcaster.

Canale 5 is now available on Sky’s channel 105 in HD. Mediaset said that the move was the first step to making all free general and thematic channels available on the satellite platform, including Italia 1 and Rete 4. Mediaset said its strategy continued to be to make its channels available on all free and pay platforms, whether terrestrial, satellite or online streaming.

The agreement between Mediaset and Sky covering the airing of free-to-air channels is the latest phase in an ongoing rapprochement between the pair that started with their March agreement covering pay TV services.

Mediaset’s free channels disappeared from Sky’s line-up in 2015 following disagreements about retransmission fees.

The March deal between the pair covering pay TV sees Mediaset make a number of cinema and TV series channels from Mediaset Premium available to Sky customers at no additional charge, along with a raft of on-demand content from Warner, Universal and Medusa.

The reciprocal agreement saw Sky create a new digital-terrestrial pay TV offering of its own for Italian DTT viewers via Mediaset’s transmission capacity.

Sky Italia is also renting bandwidth from the DTT multiplexes operated by Mediaset-owned Ei Towers to deliver a DTT pay offering.