In just few days’ time, football fans in Malaysia will be able to catch FIFA World Cup 2018 through two official broadcasters, Astro and RTM. Given that RTM’s TV1 and TV2 are also available on unifi TV, some might have hoped that they are able to catch the tournament through the IPTV platform by TM.
Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. TM earlier today through its social media channels have revealed that the FIFA World Cup 2018 coverage on TV1 and TV2 will not be shown through unifi TV. As expected, the reason to the blackout is due to broadcast rights.
https://twitter.com/unifiTV/status/1006095357632184320
This is not the first time that TM has encountered this black out though as the same case actually happened four years ago during the FIFA World Cup 2014. However, TM seemed to be more proactive back then since the company has actually tried to negotiate with Astro to have World Cup matches on RTM channels to be shown on its IPTV platform even though the talk eventually broke down due to disagreement in terms of fees.
TM then subsequently provided free premium contents for unif TV’s customers in order to fill out the void left by the black out. Given the lack of follow-up announcement from the company, it is not known at the moment whether TM will be offering such compensation once again or otherwise.
Guess we’ll just have to be content with the “bawang” campaign for now.
(Source: unifi TV – 1, 2 via Amanz // RTM’s black out on HyppTV image: Hazimworks)
