They may not yet be big players in Central and Eastern Europe’s TV industry, but both Vodafone and T-Mobile are certainly worth keeping a close eye on.
Earlier this week Broadband TV News reported on an interview Ravinder Takker, the CEO of Vodafone Romania, gave to the local publication Ziarul Financiar. In it, he denied that the company has plans to launch a DTH platform in the country, instead wanting “to do something more interesting and relevant”. Given the highly competitive nature of the satellite TV sector, this is hardly surprising and perhaps also sensible.
However, Takker then quite tellingly refused to confirm or deny that it could launch TV services via a mobile app. Instead, he revealed that it will make a number of moves in the content sector this year and in fact make significant investments in the country.
Earlier this year, I personally invited Vodafone Romania to participate in a business briefing that my company Broadband TV News and Telenor Satellite held in Bucharest. Given that its theme was Content and delivery challenges for pay-TV in Romania, I was not surprised that the company politely declined, citing its current lack of involvement in the sector.
Even so, I feel it is now probably a safe bet that it will enter the pay-TV market – and quite soon.
Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, T-Mobile added an IPTV service to its portflio at the beginning of last month. The launch of the service, which is known as T-Mobile TV, was described by Tomas Rysavy, VP residential segment and product marketing, as “a logical step that will help us expand our offer for our customers and make it even more attractive to them”.
Given the strong position the incumbent O2 already holds in the Czech IPTV sector, and the prospect of Digi TV soon also entering the market, T-Mobile TV is unlikely to find the going easy.
However, the new service underlines T-Mobile’s growing ambition in CEE’s TV industry.