It’s now nearly two decades since CME set the TV industry in Central and Eastern Europe on fire by launching the highly successful Czech station TV Nova.
Much has happened in the intervening years, including an ownership dispute over Nova in the late 1990s and the global financial crisis 10 years later, both of which could easily have brought the company down. Instead, it has proved to be a survivor and today finds itself on the threshold of what could be an exciting new era.
CME’s latest set of results paints an encouraging picture of its financial performance in 2011, with revenues and OIBDA growing by 17% and 56% respectively year-on-year. This came against the backdrop of what were still challenging times for TV ad markets across the region and vindicated the company’s decision to develop different revenue streams, with a growing focus on content.
The latter has undoubtedly been helped by having the backing of Time Warner, which bought into the company in 2009, along with the development of such services as the pan-regional VOD platform Voyo.
Speaking in a conference call to discuss CME’s results, Adrian Sarbu, CME president and CEO, said Voyo now had 20,000 paying customers, spending on average $5 (€3.8).
There are clear plans to develop the service – it was launched at the beginning of last year in the Czech Republic and subsequently rolled out to CME’s five other markets – and in due course it will become a key revenue stream.
CME’s content division Media Pro Entertainment is also playing an increasingly important role in the company. Its productions are not only distributed in CME markets but also licensed worldwide in more than 70 countries.
On the other hand, CME is certainly not yet where it would like to be. When questioned about the possibility of a “joint venture or arrangement” with a company such as ProSieben, Sarbu said the timing was wrong and “CME has much higher potential than it is showing now”.
While 2012 is likely to present its own set of challenges, CME seems to be on the right track.
Its future development is likely to be much less heady than that experienced in the 1990s but exciting all the same.
