Press release
Consolidation in German TV Streaming market: Zattoo takes over Magine’s B2C business
Berlin, 28. January 2019 - The TV streaming provider Zattoo takes over the B2C business of Magine TV Germany as of 28 January 2019. Magine TV Germany will stop its operations at the end of February. 150’000 active users will receive a welcome offer of European market leader Zattoo and try out PREMIUM two months free of charge.
Magine TV Germany will close its TV streaming service in Germany on February 28, 2019. 150’000 affected users will receive a welcome offer from market leader Zattoo to continue watching TV in HD on all devices and including time shift features.
Nick Brambring, CEO Zattoo International: “Zattoo has always believed in the combination of strong TV content and modern distribution by streaming, allowing for multi-screen and time-shift usage. Our mission is to build a superior platform to serve more and more users, both under our own brand and in partnerships. We regret losing Magine as a partner in developing a market for modern TV distribution in Germany. However, we gain more users and can therefore invest even more in our product.”
“Magine started as a direct to consumer business and has been pivoting its strategy to being primarily a business to business provider for some time,” said Kamal Bherwani, Chairman of Magine. “Consistent with this pivot, we have decided to focus on one strategy, not multiple business models. As a consequence, we are selling our B2C business to our renowned competitor and now partner, Zattoo. We would like to sincerely thank all users of Magine TV for their loyalty. With Zattoo, our users are in good hands and can stream high quality TV with a wide range of channels as usual.”
Zattoo is a Swiss based company, offering a modern alternative to cable TV. Users consume TV on Smart TV’s or via streaming devices, e.g. Amazon Fire and Apple TV. They can also use Zattoo on mobile devices and time shifted. Zattoo operates in Germany and Switzerland under its own brand.
It also provides its solution to partners like 1&1 and TV Spielfilm in Germany, Europe and the US whose customers enjoy the Zattoo service under the partner brand. Magine users receive a welcome offer: they can try Zattoo PREMIUM, which has a regular price of 9.99 Euro per month, for two months free of charge. Premium users have access to more than 100 TV channels, including 70 HD-quality channels, and functions for time-shifted television. These are restart (watching the current TV programme from the beginning), online recordings (up to 30 recordings) and live pauses (interruption of the live stream up to 90 minutes). In addition, Zattoo PREMIUM can be accessed everywhere in the EU.
Cloud-based over-the-top service Magine TV was founded in Sweden in March 2013, has been available to consumers in Germany since April 2014, and offers a high-quality range of all relevant free-TV and many pay-TV channels in HD in Germany. Magine TV has now made the decision to withdraw its B2C business from the German TV streaming market. Magine will focus on the B2B business globally with Video Streaming platform provider MaginePro, www.maginepro.com, offering comprehensive video streaming solutions for web platforms and content providers.