Mediaset facing €60 million Telefónica bill over Mitele Plus

Mediaset is facing a €60 million per season bill from Telefónica should its Mitele Plus pay TV offer reach certain targets.

The broadcaster is already paying €20 million per season for the rights to air La Liga, Europa League and Champions League matches. However, as reported by local paper El Economista, the contract’s small print specifies that this could rise to over €60 million in the event that it reaches 270,000 average subscribers per month.

The service, which was announced last week, is available for €2.50 a month or €25 for a full year including tax. Including the football add-on, price rises to €35 a month with a promotional subscription of €30 for the first three months.

Mitele Plus is being positioned as the only non telco-affiliated service to offer that level of football coverage online. It also is the only means for Spanish fans to watch football without a long-term contract commitment, unlike rivals Movistar and Orange.

Vodafone, which has historically also been a rights holder, will stop airing football from the start of the new season, having declined to pay the fee demanded by Telefónica. 

DAZN was also interested in carrying La Liga, though it announced that it had been unable to come to an agreement with Telefónica. 

Speaking on the launch of Mitele Plus, Mediaset España said that the new service represents “a new stage in the development of commercial television in our country, offering in this first phase content free of interruptions which serves as the point of departure for an ambitious plan of digital transformation that will reinforce television as the leading media”.