Chris Dziadul, December 19, 2024
Polsat owner speaks out
Zygmunt Solorz, the founder and owner of the leading Polish national commercial broadcaster Polsat, has opened up about the dispute with his three children over the future of the company. Speaking to Forbes and widely quoted in the local media, he said they are “not ready and grateful”. He added that the assets of the foundation through which he controls Polsat will be taken over by the charitable Polsat Foundation. Solorz also confirmed that although a provision was introduced in 2022 stating his children would gradually take over the foundation if his health deteriorates, the dispute arose because they wanted to do so completely and much sooner. In a separate development, Solorz has praised the move announced by Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk to make Polsat, TVN and leading telcos strategically important institutions that cannot be sold without permission from the government.
Cable TV dominates in Romania
Romania ended the first half with a total of 7.8 million pay-TV subscribers. This, according to the regulator ANCOM, was unchanged on the same period in 2023. Cable accounted for 89%, with DTH claiming 10% and IPTV 1%. ANCOM notes that the number of cable subscribers was, at 6.9 million, up 2% on a year earlier, while the number of DTH subscribers fell by 12%. Digi had a market share of 74%, Orange 14% and Vodafone 10%. Furthermore, pay-TV accounted for 15% of revenues in the electronic communications sector in the first half of this year.
Record for Polish streaming
Streaming services were watched by 9.1% of TV viewers in Poland in November. This, according to Nielsen, was the highest figure since The Gauge was introduced in the country in January 2023. Netflix and YouTube both accounted for 2.1%, with other streaming services a combined 4.9%. In November, the average daily TV viewing time in Poland was 4 hours and 4 minutes. Compared to the previous month, traditional TV viewing was up 9% and streaming 14%.
Latvia reduces FTA channels
The free-to-air (FTA) versions of the terrestrial TV channels TV24 and TV4 will no longer be available from January 1. As a result, viewers in the country will only be offered the SD and HD versions of the FTA channels LTV1 and LTV7, both of which are operated by the public broadcaster LTV, along with ReTV and Ukraine’s RADA. TV24 and TV4 will still be visible as pay-TV channels, and the FTA offer may be expanded again next year.
4iG targets North Macedonia
Hungary’s 4iG has officially submitted a letter to the Agency for Electronic Communications (AEC) expressing its interest in acquiring available radio frequencies as part of its plan to enter the North Macedonian telecommunications market as a new operator. Outside its home market, 4iG’s subsidiaries ONE Crna Gora in Montenegro and ONE Albania serve nearly 2.2 million residential and 400,000 business customers across the Western Balkans.
Strong revenue growth for Croatian OTT
Revenues for OTT services in Croatia were 171% higher in the third quarter than same period last year. Furthermore, according to the regulator HAKOM, the number of OTT subscribers stood at 110,055 as of the end of September, or 116% more than a year earlier. As of Q3, IPTV accounted for 51.2% of pay-TV subscribers, with cable claiming 14%, satellite 13%, OTT almost 12% and pay-DTT 10%. The total number of pay-TV subscribers stood at 926,288.
Starlight Media launches movie channels
Ukraine’s Starlight Media has launched three new TV channels under the Your Movie brand. Known as Your Movie HIT, Your Movie ACTION and Your Movie RELAX, they will show films of various genres, both Ukrainian and world hits, exclusively in the Ukrainian language. The channels will be available on all technologies from December 23. Starlight Media, which is one of the leading media groups in Ukraine, points out that in December 2023 it launched a mono-genre TV series channel named You Series which is already one of the country’s most watched channels. More recently, earlier this month it launched Super+, a channel dedicated famous and current sitcoms, comedies, humorous shows and TV series that was already in the top 20 most popular channels in its first week on air.
Antenna Group hires Henning Tewes
Henning Tewes has been appointed the new CEO of Antenna Group, effective January 1, 2025. In his new role, Tewes will oversee Antenna’s wide-ranging existing portfolio, which includes free and pay-TV, streaming, news, cinemas, live events, education, content, production, publishing, digital media, e-commerce, radio and music. Tewes has worked in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sectors for 36 years and led several companies and divisions of RTL Group.
Streaming services expand in Hungary
There were 24 streaming services operating in Hungary as of the end of 2023. However, according to the regulator NMHH, referring to the source The Whitereport database, the figure does not include the on-demand services of city TV stations. Of the 24, 11 were offered by global streaming providers, six by domestic streaming providers, four by TV broadcasters and three by broadcasting/telecom companies. The number operated by global streaming providers has increased steadily since 2019, when it stood at four. At the end of 2023 they included Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Skyshowtime, Apple TV and Fifa+), while Filmio, Cinego, FHPlay and SCREAM! were among the domestic ones.
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