Major content sharing deal launched

Greece's two biggest subscription TV providers will start sharing their sports content Friday, following an agreement they made last month.

"The agreement has no precedent in the Greek market, although we have examples of content exchange in the UK, Germany and Cyprus," Panayotis Georgiopoulos, CEO of Nova Greece, told Kathimerini.

Georgiopoulos said that the exchange of sports programming "gives consumers the opportunity to watch their favorite championships on one platform, given the intensifying content fragmentation."

One of the effects of fragmentation is content piracy, which, Georgiopoulos says, is especially high in Greece. Piracy also contributes to the relatively low penetration of subscription TV services: 31% of Greek households use this services, which places the country second to last among the 27 European Union members, where a total of 67% of...