Croatia’s digital TV market has come a long way in the last few years and looks well placed to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
That was certainly the message that came across at the business breakfast organised this week in Zagreb by Broadband TV News and Telenor Satellite Broadcasting.
On the face of it, the standout feature of the market is the remarkable success of IPTV: Hrvastki Telekom effectively operates two platforms – MAXtv and, through a subsidiary, Iskon TV – and there are also services provided by at least two alternative carriers. Taken together, their subscriber figure is probably in the region of 250,000-300,000, which is remarkable for a country with only around 1.5 million TV homes.
However, there is also a fine balance in the market, with the cable industry, dominated by B.net, well developed and satellite sector served by the latter’s Total TV operation, Hrvastki Telekom’s platform and RCS&RDS-owned Digi.
Furthermore, Croatia completed the transition to digital broadcasting in October last year, a mere eight months after the process had started.
All the speakers at the business breakfast, including Jeremy Maddocks from NDS, provided a vision of where the market in Croatia and indeed the rest of Central Europe is heading, And in almost all respects it is in the same direction as in the rest of Europe, with viewers expecting – indeed demanding – to watch the content that they want when they want.
The crucial thing for Croatia is that the market is to a large degree already consolidated and leading players such as B.net and Hrvastki Telekom already have the bit between the teeth in terms of new technology and services. The former, represented by its CEO Adrian Jezina, claimed to already offer the most advanced OTT solution in Croatia.
The latter, on the other hand, is according to Nikola Francetic, its operating director, content development and management sector, obtaining as much premium content as possible for its on demand services. This includes the leading football league in Croatia, to which it acquired exclusive rights this summer and has since been renamed the MAXtv Prva liga (MAXtv Premier League).
Yet despite all this progress, there are still a number of problems facing the industry. One that came to light at the business breakfast is the retransmission of the public broadcaster HRT’s channels by B.net outside the country without having the necessary rights – something that a delegate in the audience alleged and B.net denied.
Yet overall, and despite what is generally a difficult economic environment, Croatia is making good progress in the digital TV sector and its prospects for the future look distinctly promising.
