Type Sociedade Anónima Headquarters Lisbon, Portugal | Traded as Euronext: ZONOP Parent organization Zopt, SGPS, S.A. | |
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Industry Telecommunications, media Founded 1994 (as PT Multimédia)
2007 (spin-off from Portugal Telecom)
2013 (merger with Optimus Telecomunicações)
2014 (as NOS) Key people Miguel Almeida (CEO)
Isabel dos Santos
(non-executive administrator) Products Cable television (HFC), FTTH, broadband Internet access, landline, mobile operator, television broadcasting, film distribution, movie theater operation Stock price NOS (ELI) € 4.93 +0.07 (+1.34%)17 Mar, 5:35 PM GMT+1 - Disclaimer CEO Miguel Almeida (2 Oct 2013–) Subsidiaries NOS Comunicações, NOS Audiovisuais, ZAP Profiles | ||
NOS is a Portuguese media holding company whose main assets include a satellite, cable operator, and ISP, a mobile phone operator, a movie distributor (NOS Audiovisuais) and a virtual carrier of mobile phone services. Its services include cable television, cable internet and VOIP. NOS (formerly PT Multimédia, ZON Multimédia and ZON Optimus) is the spun-off media arm of Portugal Telecom. NOS produces several premium channels for the TV platform, which include SportTV (joint-venture with Controlinveste) and TVCine. NOS Audiovisuais (formerly ZON Lusomundo) is also the home-video distributor of Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros., DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures releases in the Portuguese market, alongside of launching several independent and European titles.
History
NOS was founded as TVCabo in 1994, and was the third cable operator to be founded in Portugal (the first was the regional Cabo TV Madeirense, which was founded in 1992, followed by Bragatel early on in 1994). The first customer was connecter in November 1994. Initially the channel offer consisted of thirty channels and the number of Portuguese-speaking channels was initially limited to the terrestrial channels, with the number of Portuguese-speaking channels increasing as the years went on.
The company might be considered a Portuguese dot-com. In the PT Multimédia days, it brought Portugal Telecom SAPO (a successful web portal and search engine, sold to its parent company in 2005), Lusomundo (a successful movie distributor, movie theater operator included in the spun off company and, formerly, the owner of the Diário de Notícias newspaper and the TSF radio, which were sold to Controlinveste the same year as SAPO was sold) and several TV channels such as SportTV, CNL (now SIC Notícias) and TVCine. (MOV was only created after the spin-off).
On 17 January 2008, ZON announced it would acquire TVTEL, its main competitor in both cable and satellite broadcasting in Porto region. Thus, ZON is strengthening its position due to the appearance of a new significant rival, MEO from Portugal Telecom, using IPTV and satellite broadcasting systems, and there remains one other more cable television and internet operator in Portugal, Cabovisão.
On 29 September 2008, ZON Multimédia announced the new mobile product ZON Mobile (MVNO), the first real quad play operator in Portugal.
In November 2008, ZON announced that it would enter the contest for the fifth channel that would be created at the same time as Digital Terrestrial Television is introduced in Portugal.
On 17 March 2010, ZON renamed its cable and satellite television service as ZON TV, dropping the 16-year-old TV Cabo brand.
In 2013, the merger with Optimus (which also includes Optimus Clix, Optimus Kanguru, Optimus Tag, Smart and WTF) was approved and the company was renamed to ZON Optimus. In May 2014, the two brands ZON and Optimus were merged into one single brand, called NOS (meaning "us").