German subscription broadcaster Sportdigital has launched action sports and lifestyle channel Edgesport in Germany, Austria and Switzerland after securing carriage deals with pay-television broadcaster Sky and OTT platform Waipu.tv.
The announcement comes after Germany’s Commission for Concentration in the Media (KEK) stated last month that Sportdigital had secured a licence for Edgesport.
The Sportainment Medien-owned broadcaster submitted a licence application to carry Edgesport at local media authority Medienanstalt Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.
The channel, which is being operated in German-speaking territories by Sportdigital through a sublicensing agreement with the IMG agency, will be distributed as a pay-television service via satellite, cable networks, IPTV and via internet platforms.
Edgesport is available from today (Tuesday) on the Sky platform in Germany and Austria as part of the ‘trendSports’ package. Sportdigital said negotiations are currently being held for further licensing deals to add to the deals with Sky and Waipu.tv.
Sportdigital managing director Gisbert Wundram said: “With Edgesport we are running another pay-television sports themed channel, whose dissemination and content we will consistently expand. This offers us important strategic advantages in positioning, so that in the future viewers will also be able to see attractive live sports content and events besides football.”
Amazon further enhanced the sports content on offer to customers of its Prime subscription service in Austria and Germany through a new agreement with Edgesport in September 2017. In December 2015, German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 agreed a multi-year distribution deal for Edgesport in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In August, Sportdigital rebranded its flagship channel in Germany as Sportdigital Fussball to reflect a programming line-up entirely focused on live coverage of different international football leagues.