MTG Scores Swedish Rights for 2014, 2016 Olympic Games

STOCKHOLM: Modern Times Group has shored up the exclusive Swedish broadcasting rights for the XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014 and the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in 2016, covering free TV, pay TV, mobile and the Internet.

The group’s free-TV channels will deliver a minimum of 100 hours from the Winter Games and 200 hours from the Summer Games. Additional coverage will run on the group’s pay-TV sports networks, including Viasat Sport, Viasat Fotboll, Viasat Fotboll HD, Viasat Premier League HD, Viasat Golf and Viasat Hockey. Plus, coverage of Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 will be made available via mobile phones and online by MTG’s video streaming service Viaplay. MTG secured the rights from SPORTFIVE International.

“It is a major milestone for us as a group to secure the rights to broadcast coverage of the original and most popular sports event in the world," said Hans-Holger Albrecht, president and CEO. "Our extensive portfolio of free- and pay-TV channels, and the availability of our content through so many different platforms in Sweden, enables us to make full use of such properties. MTG is the leading sports content distributor in Sweden, and we produce and broadcast over 5,000 hours of live sports annually. This acquisition reflects our strategic focus on securing premium sports content and making it available to viewers across all of our channels and platforms.”