Ukraine’s Volia launches Shakhtar TV for football fans

Ukrainian cable operator Volia has started broadcasting Shakhtar TV, the TV channel from the football club of the same name, to its 600,000 subscribers across Ukraine.

The channel is available via digital cable and on OTT, in both SD and HD quality, and is also available via the Volia TV mobile app.

The Shakhtar channel broadcasts round-the-clock football matches featuring archive content of its team playing in the Champions League, UEFA Cup, Ukrainian Championship and other tournaments.

From next season, the channel will also feature home-produced content including interviews with football players and coaching staff as well as other football content.

Shakhtar football club was licensed to broadcast on cable via OTT TV technology in February. The channel, which is produced by Media Group Ukraine, has been streamed in test mode on the OLL.TV platform and will also be aired on the Xtra TV satellite platform from May.

“Shakhtar’s matches are of great interest to our viewers. We are delighted that football fans have another TV channel and we congratulate FC Shakhtar on such an ambitious and vital project as launching club television. We look forward to our partnership and hope to provide football fans in Ukraine with a unique experience in viewing their favourite content across all platforms,” said Sandra Kraujina, marketing director of Volia.

“As a European club, we always strive to open up new opportunities for our fans. With club television, they will receive quality and, most importantly, exclusive content. But beyond that, Shakhtar TV is a tool for uniting fans who support the club in different cities of Ukraine and abroad,” said Andrey Babeshko, director of TV at Shakhtar.

Oleksandr Remezovskyi, director for distribution of pay TV channels and media platforms at Media Group Ukraine, said: “Media Group Ukraine will be engaged in the distribution of Shakhtar TV. The channel is already available to subscribers to the OLL.TV platform, in the VOLIA network and, in May it will be included in packages of the Xtra TV satellite provider and other cable providers. We will try to ensure maximum coverage and wide access of viewers to the Shakhtar TV channel.”