These are interesting times indeed for Ukraine’s TV industry.
Though by no means a backwater, it has until now lagged some distance behind those of its two largest neighbours, Poland and Russia. While that is unlikely to change anytime soon, it will, within a matter of weeks, feel with some justification that the gap has finally started to close.
Ukraine was relatively late to launch DTH services, with the first platforms serving the country making their debuts as recently as 2008. However, while one (Viasat Ukraine) has since performed reasonably well, two others (Poverkhnost Plus and MYtv) ceased operations within a few months of each other last year.
Now, the country finds itself preparing for the launch of two more platforms. The first, known as Xtra TV, will be backed by the Istil Group and, from what has become public this week, use Spacecom’s AMOS-3 satellite at 4 degrees West and Irdeto conditional access to deliver up to 100 channels.
The second is meanwhile likely to be a localised version of the highly successful Russian platform Tricolor TV. It will employ DRE-Crypt condition access and probably use Eutelsat W7 at 36 degrees East to distribute 55 channels to viewers in Ukraine.
While there is certainly no guarantee that these platforms will succeed, they will, in all likelihood, employ very different business models to those by Poverkhnost Plus and MYtv. The latter, in particular, offered a sophisticated product that was unaffordable to most Ukrainians and ended up with a subscriber total believed to be only in the low hundreds.
It’s interesting to note that Tricolor TV and Poland’s Cyfrowy Polsat began life as basic, ‘cheap and cheerful’ services. This helped them acquire a large customer base quickly and they are now two of the largest platforms in the region and – certainly in the case of Cyfrowy Polsat – offering a number of advanced products. Both the two new Ukrainian platforms will probably go down a similar route and hope for the same success.
Their launch will not be made an easier by the fact that it will come alongside the long-awaited debut of DTT in Ukraine. However, this can only be good news to viewers, who can look forward to more choice than ever before.
