Tamedia Acquires a Stake in Zattoo's Swiss Business

Press Release 

The media company Tamedia is expanding its online involvement in the Internet TV market by acquiring a stake in Zattoo's Swiss business. For this purpose Zattoo Europe Ltd. is spinning off its activities in Switzerland and Liechtenstein into Zattoo Switzerland Ltd. The cooperation provides Zattoo with the opportunity to further expand and market, in collaboration with a leading Swiss media company, the Internet TV service it launched in 2006.

In a first step, Tamedia will participate in the financing of Zattoo International Ltd. with a loan and will support the company in its efforts to spin off Zattoo Switzerland Ltd. When the subsidiary company has been established, Tamedia is to assume 24.5 per cent of the capital share in the Swiss company by converting the loan into an equity position. The parties have agreed to maintain silence about the further modalities of the participation.

Zattoo, which is based on a peer-to-peer network, currently broadcasts more than 70 of the most popular television channels directly to the computers of registered users. Today, the TV service provider has over 800,000 registered users in Switzerland. The service is also available in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Norway and Spain, and overall more than three million people have registered. Zattoo is located in Zurich and Ann Arbor (USA) and employs a staff of about 40 people.