TalkTalk has acquired the blinkbox Movies business (“blinkbox”) and the Tesco broadband and fixed line voice base from Tesco Plc. The assets have been acquired free of debt and as a single transaction for cash.
blinkbox is one of the leading on-demand providers of pay content in the UK and works across multiple platforms and devices – both inside and outside the home. blinkbox’s established technical expertise in multi-platform, multi-device content delivery and incremental content relationships are highly complementary to TalkTalk’s existing strategy of being the best value for money TV provider in the UK, offering customers flexible access to the widest range of free and paid for content. TalkTalk TV is already the fastest growing TV platform in the UK with over 1.2 million customers and blinkbox will help accelerate the development of our platform by delivering a number of key initiatives significantly faster, such as offering a TV app to customers for in and out of home access to paid-for content across a range of devices.
The integration of blinkbox with our existing TV business is expected to begin immediately with the benefits of restructuring the combined platform and revenue synergies expected to flow from the end of calendar 2015. We are pleased that Adrian Letts, blinkbox CEO and co-founder will join TalkTalk as Managing Director for TV and report to Tristia Harrison, Managing Director of our consumer business.
As part of the same transaction we have also acquired Tesco’s broadband and voice base (c75,000 broadband and c20,000 voice households) which will enable us to further leverage the superior scale and economics of our national network. As with the recent acquisition of the Virgin Media National base, customers will be transferred across to the TalkTalk network over the coming months.
Dido Harding, Chief Executive of TalkTalk commented:
“Since launch TalkTalk TV has demonstrated its popularity with value-seeking customers to become the UK’s fastest growing TV service. We are excited about the opportunity that blinkbox’s platform and technology expertise bring, and which will significantly accelerate the development of our TV platform. The purchase of Tesco’s broadband base is another example of TalkTalk leveraging its national network to grow faster. We are excited about the future of quad-play – fixed phone and broadband, TV and mobile – and this acquisition will help to further drive home our value for money advantage.”
About TalkTalk TV
TalkTalk’s TV proposition, built on the YouView platform, is aimed at the c10 million Freeview homes who would like a little bit more content, but not a lot. Its differentiated content strategy is about offering customers flexible access to the broadest possible range of aggregated (but not owned) free and pay content, without having to sign up for lengthy subscriptions. TalkTalk already offers access to a comprehensive range of content including Sky’s entertainment and movies channels, all the Sky Sports channels, NowTV, a variety of ethnic channels and a number of unique TV boosts not available on any other UK pay-TV platform such as Collections from ITV, a new box set proposition.
About blinkbox
blinkbox Movies is a pay as you go digital movie and TV service. It offers 20,000 of the latest movies and TV episodes to buy or rent without subscription. Customers can watch on tablets, games consoles, Smart TVs, Blu-ray players, set top boxes and desktop computers. blinkbox customers can also download films and TV to iPads and Android tablets to watch off-line without an internet connection.