Industry

Rakuten TV, one of Europe's leading streaming platforms, has consolidated its position as a key partner for telecommunications, announcing multiple new deals in Europe at MWC 2024. Rakuten TV has secured new partnership agreements with telecommunications companies and TV Platforms in different European countries, with the aim of increasing their reach and offering quality content to the customers of these companies.

Telco agreements are one of the main pillars of Rakuten TV’s strategy, which began through its first partnership with Orange in Spain in 2022 and 1&1 in Germany in 2023. Following these successes, the platform continues to expand its work with telcos and TV Platforms throughout Europe.

Rakuten TV and 1&1 extend their initial agreement that included more than 6,000 titles available for both rental and purchase (TVOD) by adding hundreds of titles that will be offered on demand completely free of charge (AVOD) to their subscribers. The company's collaboration with 1&1 comes as part of a wider partnership with the Group's companies, with Rakuten Symphony providing infrastructure to the German telco and Rakuten Advertising managing Rakuten TV's advertising inventory.

Rakuten TV also announces a new avenue to maximize the distribution of its services through alliances with two key TV platforms (content aggregators) that offer services to telcos; Agile TV and Masmedia TV. Agile TV is a leading provider of digital OTT TV and video distribution solutions, offering a comprehensive portfolio of scalable products, SaaS applications, and cloud-based services for telcos, such as Tiscali in Italy. Masmedia TV provides a technological tool so that operators can offer their customers a streaming pay-TV service with a high degree of personalization and numerous content alternatives, with Adamo being one of its main customers.

These new agreements continue to align with the strategy which has already started to be rolled out in recent years by Rakuten TV through partnerships such as Netgem in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Zattoo in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and Alteox in Luxembourg where Rakuten TV currently offers its TVOD service. The new deals with Agile TV in Italy and in Spain through Masmedia TV extend the company’s services in those countries.

Jorge del Puerto, European Head of Partnerships and Distribution at Rakuten TV said; "The agreements with Agile TV and Masmedia TV are part of the strategy we have as a company to become a reference partner for telcos. Agile TV and Masmedia TV perfectly complement traditional telco services, allowing telco customers to access Rakuten TV content."