CEE TV industry news stories

Chris Dziadul, March 22, 2024

 

WBD’s Max set for launch

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has announced that its streaming service Max will launch in the first European countries on May 21. It will then become available across the Nordics, Iberia and Central and Eastern Europe. Poland (WBD has confirmed in June), the Netherlands, France and Belgium will follow soon afterwards. Max made its debut in the US in May 2023 and launched in Latin America and the Caribbean earlier this year.

 

TV ad spend grows in Hungary

Figures published by the Hungarian Advertising Association (MRSZ) indicate that TV ad spend in the country amounted to HUF81 billion (€205.4 million) in 2023, or 9% more than the previous year. Total media ad spend in 2023 was HUF351 billion, or 11% more than in 2022.

 

PPF Group proposes Christoph Mainusch

The Czech Republic’s PPF Group has proposed Christoph Mainusch as an independent member of the Supervisory Board of ProSieben Sat.1, in which it is one of the main shareholders. Mainusch has nearly four decades of experience in European broadcasting and in that time held several key positions, including co-CEO of Central European Media Enterprises (CME), which PPF Group now owns, between 2013-2020.

 

‘Big four’ dominate Czech pay-TV

Skylink, O2 TV, Vodafone TV and Magenta TV account for three quarters of the Czech pay-TV market, according to Atmedia. It adds that 56% of viewers aged 15-69 used pay-TV last year. Of these, 61% opted for IPTV or cable and the remainder DTH. Czechs spent on average CZK395 (€15.6) a month on pay-TV services last year, only CZK1 more than in 2022.

 

Polish streaming hits new record

Streaming’s share on TV screens in Poland reached 8.3% in February, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge. This was the highest figure since the launch of the service. Netflix remained at the top of the ranking, though its share on TV screens dropped slightly to 2% from 2.1% in January. YouTube, in second place, strengthened its position, up from 1.6% in January to 1.9%. Poles spent on average 4 hours and 8 minutes in front of their TV screens in February, which was around 11 minutes less than in January.

 

Walt Disney partners with Orange Romania

The Walt Disney Company Central and Eastern Europe has extended its TV channel distribution agreement with Orange Romania. As a result, reports Media Expres, Orange Romania, Orange Romania Communications and NextGen Communication subscribers will be able to continue watching the kids channels Disney and Disney Junior and documentary channels National Geographic, National Geographic Wild and National Geographic People.

 

More digital pay-TV subs for CEE

The number of pay-TV subscribers in Central and Eastern Europe is forecast to fall by 8 million between the peak year of 2018 to 74 million in 2029. According to the latest report by Digital TV Research, the 2018 total included 17 million analogue cable subscribers, which will fall to zero by 2027. At the same time, the number of digital pay-TV subscribers will rise by 9 million over this period. Pay-TV subscriber numbers will fall in 20 of the 22 countries covered between 2023-2029, with the total down by 2.4 million. There will be 4.6 million fewer analogue cable subscribers, while the pay satellite TV total will fall by 2.6 million. On the other hand, IPTV will gain 2.8 million and digital cable 1.9 million. Despite losing 2.6 million pay-TV subscribers between 2023-2029, Russia will still account half of the region’s total.

 

IPTV dominates in Croatia

IPTV accounted for over half (57.36%) of pay-TV connections in Croatia at the end of last year. According to the regulator HAKOM, it was followed by cable (17.02%), satellite TV (14.60%) and pay-DTT (11.02%). The total number of pay-TV subscribers in Q4 2023 stood at 915,704, down 0.04% on a year earlier, while pay-TV revenues totalled €32,917,955, or 7.25% more than a year earlier.

 

Polish local TV: the stats

Telewizja WTK was the most watched local TV station in Poland last year with 261,000 viewers, or 6.1% of the total. According to the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), it was followed by TV Olsztyn, with 233,900 (5.5%). In total, 4.3 million people watched local TV services in 2023.

 

Ukrainian appeal to Warner Bros. Discovery

Taras Kremin, the commissioner for the protection of the state language in Ukraine, has appealed to Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) to create a Ukrainian language audio track for the company’s TV channels broadcast in the country. This particularly applies to Discovery Channel, CNN, Eurosport, Animal Planet and Science Channel, all of which currently show programmes in Russian.

 

Orange steps up in Poland

Orange Polska is now offering ultrafast fibre broadband access of up to 8Gbps in Warsaw and Kraków. It can initially be received by over 830,000 households and the telco plans to roll out the offer to more cities later this year.

 

Russia’s Orion expands Media-Telecom co-operation

The Orion Group of Companies in Russia has signed a new agreement with Media-Telecom, with which it has partnered since 2019. It will see Orion distribute the TV channels Sapfir, Kineco and Terra on the Express-80 (80 degrees East) and Express-AM5 (140 degrees East) satellites. It will also distribute the channels on its terrestrial network. Saphire, according to Orion, has an “oriental flavour’ and is aimed at female viewers, while Kineko offers series from South Korea, Japan and China. Terra TV offers documentary/entertainment programming and is aimed at male viewers.

 

 

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© Chris Dziadul, 2024