Sky confirms Spanish OTT plans for end of 2017

Sky is to move ahead with a direct to consumer service for the Spanish market. The long-anticipated OTT platform will launch before the end of 2017.

“We intend to launch a simple and affordable OTT service in Spain, the Eurozone’s fourth largest economy and the market which has the largest free-to-air (FTA) headroom in Europe outside of our existing footprint,” CEO Jeremy Darroch confirmed to analysts Thursday.

HBO launched its own streaming service in Spain, HBO España, last November, and Netflix, started in the country in 2015. Other streaming services competing in Spain are ones offered by operators Telefonica, Vodafone and Orange. This will mean that much of the content on Sky UKs service, may not be available on their SPanish service, as that content will be owned by other services.

Sky now plans to follow suit by the end of this year. The move into Spain had been rumored. Darroch told analysts that the new service will target free-TV homes in Spain and that the investment required to launch it is “modest,” with a “small, agile” team overseeing the project.