TalkTalk on Thursday agreed to acquire supermarket chain Tesco’s Blinkbox streaming service and broadband customer base.
Financial terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed, but a source close the company told Total Telecom that reports that the transaction is worth £5 million are accurate.
Launched in 2007 and purchased by Tesco in 2011, Blinkbox is subscription-free service with a 20,000-strong catalogue of movies and TV shows available to buy or rent. Content can be streamed to smart TVs, tablets, PCs, games consoles and set-top-boxes (STBs).
"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," said TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding, in a statement.
Blinkbox CEO and co-founder Adrian Letts will join TalkTalk as managing director for TV, reporting to Tristia Harrison, managing director of TalkTalk’s consumer business. Integrating Blinkbox is due to begin immediately, TalkTalk said, which will accelerate the development of new offerings, such as a TV app that will allow customers to access paid-for content in any place and on a range devices.
"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," said Harding.
TalkTalk has also agreed to acquire Tesco’s broadband customer base, which stands at approx imately 75,000 households. The supermarket’s 20,000 fixed-line voice customers will also transfer to TalkTalk.
