Poland’s first pay-per-view transmission has proved to be a success. However, it was not without controversy.
The fight between Vitali Klitschko and Tomasz Adamek was carried by most pay-TV services in the country, with the DTH platforms Cyfrowy Polsat and Cyfra+ each charging subscribers around PLN40 (€9.26).
According to Rzeczpospolita, the number of viewers for it on Cyfrowy Polsat alone may have been as high as 200,000.
The controversy stemmed from the fact that RTL made the transmission more widely available in Germany, where it was watched by 9.51 million viewers, and RTL can be received unencrypted in Poland.
Interestingly, the cable operator Aster, which has just been taken over by the market leader UPC Polska, decided to encrypt the channel on the occasion of the fight.