The Polish Chamber of Electronic Communications’ (PIKE’s) 40th international conference and exhibition was held in the city of Lodz earlier this week and took as its theme The Digital Promised Land.
Despite being a cable event, it covered a wide range of industry related topics. What was more, there was a strong international element, with speakers/panelists from – amongst others – Cable Europe, ANGA and Hungarian (HCA) and Lithuanian (LKTA) cable associations, as well as a number of international content providers.
The prestigious nature of the event means that it attracts delegates of the highest order, with one of the regular attendees being Zygmunt Solorz-Zak, the founder and owner of Polsat. His contribution as a panelist was perhaps most notable this year by the support he expressed for the public broadcaster TVP, which in his view should be allowed exclusive rights to show some of the larger, more general sporting events.
When asked about the second digital dividend, Solorz-Zak put forward the idea that frequencies should be consolidated, with one operator providing equal access to them and users competing on programming.
Given its importance in the marketplace, it was not surprising that other speakers also discussed TVP. Its funding remain a contentious issue and the head of KRRiT said the regulator favoured a solution in which 80% of the broadcaster’s revenue would be derived from new audiovisual fees paid by viewers.
Crucially, it would also like to see TVP stop carrying advertising, though this could be a step too far.
Despite its best public service intentions, TVP is undoubtedly one of the more commercially minded national public broadcasters in the CEE region and its aim, according to president Juliusz Braun, is to have a combined market share of around a third for its growing portfolio of channels.
It’s interesting to note that TVP has also made progress in introducing HbbTV into Poland. The process began with Euro 2012 last year and now appears to be progressing rapidly.
Poland completed the transition to digital terrestrial broadcasting this July has three multiplexes up and running. However, there seem to be question marks about two further ones it may launch and whether they will be used for data or video.
Two recent DTT licence winners – ZPR and Stopklatka, which will operate new educational and movie channels respectively on the first multiplex – meanwhile both discussed their launch plans.
Although there were strong contributions from many panelists on a wide range of issues ranging from copyright to pay-TV, along with of course cable – Vectra, Multimedia Polska, Inea and Toya, the latter of which hosted the event, were all present – we seemed to be left with more questions than answers.
While the Polish cable industry is making significant progress in many areas, one can’t help feeling that the market would be hugely shaken up by the arrival of a service such as Netflix. That is something we may well find ourselves discussing this time next year, when the next major PIKE international event is held, most probably in Kraków.
