Netflix has renewed an important Liberty Global pay TV distribution deal that will see its service get continued carriage on set-top boxes across Europe.
The companies today announced a new multiyear deal that will offer 11 million video customers in Europe – including Virgin Media in the U.K. – access to the Netflix service. Virgin Media said that seven years ago it became the first TV and broadband provider in the U.K. to integrate Netflix and since then the company said approximately half of its V6 video subscribers regularly access Netflix content on their TV sets.
Liberty Global said Netflix is available on the Horizon platform in nearly every country in which it operates and that the company will continue to enhance functionality and overall integration of Netflix within its offering.
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“We are excited to extend our partnership with Netflix and continue to provide the best of all worlds in content on a single, intuitive platform,” said Enrique Rodriguez, CTO of Liberty Global, in a statement. “Our customers are savvy. And with one voice control command, they can continue to directly access the programming they want on networks that deliver reliable, uninterrupted viewing. Netflix is a global leader in streaming content, and that’s precisely a partner we want for our customers.”
In January, European pay TV operator Sky said that it signed a new multiyear agreement with Netflix and will now give customers who use Sky Q the option of taking up Netflix’s basic plan directly from its pay TV service.
The pay TV distribution deals in Europe come for Netflix as the company considers its options for service bundles to help maintain its growth momentum. During the company’s most recent earnings call, Chief Product Officer Greg Peters said there may be business models that make sense for Netflix to bundle together with multiple streaming content services but right now most of the company’s bundles are with legacy TV and broadband providers.
“I think there are multiple different opportunities to find the right mix where we’re able to introduce Netflix as part of a set of offerings and just make it simple for people to sign up, and it’s logical and intuitive for them to go do so,” Peters said.