Sport is added to Lightbox package

Kiwi sports fans can enjoy more premium sport content after a new joint venture partnership between online TV service Lightbox and Coliseum Sports Media was announced. Photo / Getty Images

Online TV service Lightbox and Coliseum Sports Media have signed a 50:50 partnership but at this stage they are not promising lower prices.

Current Lightbox customers will have to pay more for the sports service when it starts next year, but it is still not clear if they will get a discount.

Coliseum made its name beating Sky TV to win the online rights to the English Premier League football and has since picked up other rights for French rugby and golf.

The pay TV merger creating Lightbox Sport offers an alternative for lovers of minority sports who this week received news that Freeview channel Sommet Sports would be closing down because of an acute funding shortage, after 17 months on air.

Lightbox Sport is a pay TV operation and has the corporate backing of Spark,so industry players believe that it ought to be moreviable.

The partnership means Spark is now in the market for internet TV sports rights and the link with the Lightbox non-sports package will see it become more of an alternative package to Sky.

Coliseum managing director Tim Martin said that outside the joint venture, Coliseum would continue to develop online sports broadcasts overseas.

It had recently offered the English Premier League in Taiwan.

Sky TV is about to launch Neon - its own subscription video on demand (SVOD) service - to compete with Lightbox.

But it will not be showing sports because that might undermine its more lucrative main sports service.

The American SVOD giant Netflix is also about to launch here in March next year, though it too will not offer sports.

So the joint venture gives Lightbox a special niche.

Earlier this year, Sky TV lost its broadcasting rights to US PGA Golf, European PGA Golf and the PGA Asian Tour Golf, while hanging on to exclusive rights to the US Masters, British Open and Australian Open golf tournaments for 2015.

But it controls the big popular sports of rugby, rugby league and cricket.

In October Sky TV signed a conditional contract to renew its five-year deal with the New Zealand Rugby Union and the Sanzar unions for an undisclosed amount.

Sky is not yet under threat, but competition is starting to eat away at its overwhelming dominance.