Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Silverbird Television (STV) has signed a deal to broadcast one live English Premier League match per week over the course of the 2020 – 2021 season.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the media house said the deal was agreed with Integral, the current free-to-air rights holder for the Premier League matches in Nigeria.
Integral secured its rights in a sub-license deal from the Infront Sports & Media agency, the substantive rights holder for free-to-air distribution rights in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Integral currently has a similar deal with a national broadcaster, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), and will now be adding Silverbird TV as a broadcaster partner.
Silverbird will air one of the 3pm fixtures each Saturday on its free-to-air channel while it will also show a handful of Premier League produced magazine programmes weekly.
Speaking on the partnership, Mr Bola Salako, the Chief Operating Officer of Silverbird Communications said, “We at Silverbird are excited at the opportunity to avail our numerous viewers across Nigeria with select premium football matches from the most exciting league in the world – The English Premier League.
“Silverbird Television is primarily a family entertainment-oriented channel, and it is quintessential for us to ensure that our viewers get the best of every appropriate programming genre.
“Sports is a major part of our content offering and football in particular as the acclaimed ‘king of sports’ holds particular appeal to a large section of our target demographic.
“And with the new Premier League season on the horizon, we are looking forward to teaming up with Integral on this exciting new project of bringing premium sporting content to mass numbers of Nigerian viewers.”
Adding to that, Mrs Abimbola Ilo, the managing director of Integral, stated that, “We are once again pleased to be bringing the excitement of the English Premier League closer to its fans in Nigeria.
“Silverbird is an entertaining television station watched by millions of Nigerians and it’s only right that the most entertaining football league in the world is added to its roster.
“With the Premier League’s popularity in Nigeria, this is yet another opportunity for its passionate fans to get exciting up to date content on free-to-air TV.”
STV can be viewed terrestrially on StarTimes Channel 109 and UHF 23.
