Telekom to switch Liga Total subscribers to new service for free

German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom has confirmed that customers who signed up for its Entertain IPTV ‘Liga Total’ package after January 4 will have their subscriptions switched to a new Sky Fussball Bundesliga package for free next month.

Telekom said that new subscriptions to the Sky Fussball Bundesliga package on Entertain would then be required for those customers who wanted to keep accessing the package beyond the end of the 2013-14 season.

Liga Total showed coverage of the Bundesliga, Germany’s top football division, until the end of the 2012-13 season before Telekom was ousted by Sky as the Bundesliga’s IPTV rights-holder from the start of the 2013-14 season.

Under the deal between Telekom and Sky that was announced in January, Entertain subscribers will be able to access more than 50 of Sky’s channels on the IPTV platform.

Telekom’s carriage agreement with Sky will run for the duration of the latter’s four-year rights deal to show the Bundesliga, from 2013-14 to 2016-17.