Modern Times Group announces that Viasat Broadcasting has signed a five year agreement with number one Swedish Telecommunications operator, Telia, to enable Viasat to market and sell its pay-TV channel packages to Telia’s more than 300,000 IPTV customers and broadband subscribers, from 1 June 2008. Viasat’s free-TV channels TV3, TV6, TV8 and ZTV, which together account for a third of the commercial viewing in Sweden, will also be included in Telia’s ‘Lagom’ and ‘Stor’ packages.

The agreement will enable Telia’s Digital TV customers to access a total of 17 Viasat free-TV and pay-TV channels in six different Viasat channel packages (Viasat Silver, Viasat Gold, Viasat Sport, Viasat Film, Viasat Sport & Film and Viasat Golf). The packages will be marketed direct to Telia’s customers by Viasat, at prices ranging from SEK 79 per month for Viasat Sport to SEK 299 per month for the Viasat Gold premium package of 16 Viasat channels and 29 third party channels.

The agreement allows Viasat to directly market its services to Telia’s broadband customer base. Telia has more than one million broadband customers and more than 300,000 IPTV customers, which represents approximately 90% of the total Swedish IPTV subscriber market.

The Viasat Gold and Silver packages include the Viasat Sport 1, 2 and 3 channels, the five TV1000 thematic movie channels, Viasat Explorer, Viasat History, Viasat Crime and Viasat Nature. The packages also include well known third party channels including the Disney channels, CNN, MTV and National Geographic Channel, which are already included in Viasat’s existing satellite DTH and IPTV offerings. Subscribers will also have access to a catch-up TV service with over 100 hours of on-demand programming from TV3, TV6, TV8 and ZTV, as well as programming from TV1000.