Romtelecom launches its own sports TV channel

Romtelecom, no. 3 on the Romanian pay TV services, after RCS&RDS, and UPC, will next month launch its own sports TV channel, Dolce Sport, which will broadcast UEFA Champions League football matches.
Romtelecom’s investment to create a sports TV channel from scratch could see the operator enter competition over rights to broadcast matches of the internal championship next year. At present the rights for the internal football championship are held by Antena 1 and RCS&RDS, no. 1 on the TV market.
Romtelecom’s announcement does not, however, come as a surprise, considering that the company held by OTE (Greece) and Deutsche Telekom (Germany) targets to become no. 1 on TV market in three years’ time, despite RCS currently having over 1.7 million more clients on this market segment.
“With the launch of Dolce Sport Romtelecom, we are taking a new step towards implementing our strategy to position Romtelecom as the favourite provider of entertainment for the Romanian market, after launching IPTV Dolce Interactiv and the HD channels package,” said Ovidiu Ghiman, executive manager in charge of Strategy and Business Development. Romtelecom bought broadcasting rights for 112 UEFA Champions League football matches, previously held by Boom TV, a now insolvent satellite TV operator.