German pay-TV must step up, says Seifert

Speaking exclusively to TV Sports Markets, Christian Seifert, chief executive of the Deutsche Fussball Liga, said that the weak German pay-television market was the single greatest challenge facing the league. The league will also need the national cartel authority, the Bundeskartellamt, to relax its restrictions on the league’s collective sale of rights, if it is to have a chance of realising its media value.

Seifert said the onus was on German pay-television operators to create products that challenged the strong free-to-air operators in the market. “There is potential for growth for our broadcast revenues. But it is related to the ability of pay-television providers to address the German customer. Pay television has a chance to grow as long as it offers a product which reflects the specific needs of the German market.”

Pay-television penetration in Germany is only at 12 per cent, about a quarter of that in the UK and Italy and half that in Spain and France.

In a separate interview, Carsten Schmidt, the chief officer of sports, advertising sales and internet at Sky Deutschland, Germany’s leading pay-television operator, said that after several troubled years the broadcaster now had the right drivers in place to really grow the business.

The company had improved its customer management service, restructured its financial position, and was offering content and services that were “strong and differentiating”. He said that Sky did not fear competition from cable companies and had not so far been hit hard by the development of IPTV services, such as that of Deutsche Telekom.

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