Liberty Global, the European cable operator conglomerate headed by chairman John Malone, announced a multiyear deal extension with Netflix covering its European footprint. The renewed distribution agreement will run for three years.
Under the pact, Liberty Global’s will continue to offer 11 million TV customers across six countries in Europe (under the Virgin Media, Telenet and UPC brands) integrated access to the Netflix service from customers’ set-top boxes through at least the end of 2022.
Liberty Global-owned Virgin Media in the U.K. was the first pay-TV and broadband provider in Europe to launch Netflix on its digital-television platform, back in 2013. Since then, according to Liberty Global, about half of its Virgin Media’s V6 video subscribers regularly access Netflix content on their TV sets. Offering Netflix to TV subscribers has yielded “significantly higher net promoter and customer satisfaction scores,” the operator said.
In announcing the renewal, the companies cited some of Netflix’s popular original content, including “The Witcher” — which the streamer last month claimed was on track to be its biggest TV series debut to date — Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and British series “Sex Education.”
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In 2016, Netflix and Liberty Global had inked a multiyear distribution deal covering more than 30 countries in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Two years ago, Liberty Latin America spun off from Liberty Global.
“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,” Liberty Global chief technology officer Enrique Rodriguez said in a statement. “Netflix is a global leader in streaming content, and that’s precisely a partner we want for our customers.”
