Antonio Ivankovic: "We are creating content for Malta but also for abroad"

GO is Malta’s leading communications services company and the first quad play provider in the country, providing mobile, fixed line, internet and TV services to more than 500,000 customers. Since 2007, GO has been also one of the leading players in Malta’s television market and currently has 60,000 of TV subscribers. "In our TV platform GO TV we offer live TV and video on demand content to our customers,"  detailed Antonio Ivankovic, GO’s Chief Commercial Officer to Señal News. "Our subscribers can also download our Go App available on Android and watch Maltese and international channels, as well as our content in any device", he added.

Maltese GO subscribers do not have to pay extra money for the VOD service. "Customers can watch any type of video or content available on our platform starting from 5.99 euro,"  said the executive. GO recently introduced a special video on demand platform dedicated only to Maltese content called Tokis, and launched the Maltese period drama series “Chalet”, a miniseries produced by Sharp Shoot Media in collaboration with GO. It is a tale of passion and love against a backdrop of the historic and glamorous days of the Sliema Chalet in the 1930’s – a family-oriented production that is set to appeal to all generations. "We are creating content that is likeable in Malta, but also could be interesting to the other European markets," he asserted.

Ivankovic also expressed that the current award-winning series are not necessarily the ones in a good, old-fashioned English language. "The content goes over the language and over other barriers. We are quite confident that Malta has a very powerful local and domestic industry and has a lot of talent and good stories, and we could offer these things as well to the world".

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GO customer can access to three different packages, including sport content, movies and series and entertainment. "We offer more than 100 world channels, like CNN or BBC, as well as European sports leagues and fighting sports. If GO customers buy two packages, they will get the third one for free. So, in reality, they pay 5.99 euros, and then they have all the TV they love," he mentioned.

The GO strategy to create an attractive offer and catalogue consist on being a content aggregator. "We are trying to buy the best possible content from the big content houses, HBO, ITV Studios, Universal, Sony and more and offering it on our platform," explained Ivankovic. This strategy makes things easy for GO subscribers. "They have subscription with GO and enjoy all the top of the content like 'New Amsterdam' or 'Victoria' and a lot of movies especially for kids, affirmed GO CCO.

Ivankovic also revealed more details about the approach process with the producers. "We have big houses that are reaching out to us, and we have already standing and long term relationships with them. But we are as well very much interested in working with the smaller independent houses," he anticipated. "We are now on the lookout for buying new content and sourcing production here. So, if there will be a production house that would like to bring the content to be shot in Malta, we will be able to assist as well".

"We are trying to put the largest accessible content library out there with Maltese content, and we are building it ourselves. So like this, GO customers will have the repository of 1000s of hours of Maltese content and hopefully some of these titles we can as well offer to the world," he concluded.

                                                                                                                                                                        By Romina Rodríguez and Karla Flores