There was something about this year’s Cable Congress that left me feeling slightly uneasy.
Make no mistake, it was a good event. However, delegates from Central and Eastern Europe were thin on the ground and the region was barely mentioned in any of the conference sessions. Which is unfortunate, as the cable industry, especially in Europe, has always considered itself a family and it was clearly missing some of its members.
Central and Eastern Europe is currently facing a major crisis focused on Ukraine, the consequences of which could be with us for many years to come. It is being played out on several levels, one of which is in the media, be it through propaganda or indeed the banning, censorship or withdrawal of TV channels by all sides in the dispute.
Perhaps it was asking too much to have this discussed, if only briefly, at Cable Congress. What I found surprising, though, was that it was not even raised in private conversation, certainly with the people I spoke with, despite its relevance to the European cable industry.
The main focus of Cable Congress this year was arguably the changing nature of the industry itself. OTT, not surprisingly, came up on a number of occasions, but the debate now seems to have exhausted almost all avenues.
Instead, it seems to have moved on to mobile services and how they have, in only a short time, become a must-have product for cable operators. This has had a positive impact on revenues from telecom services, which now account for almost half of the total.
Interestingly, this trend is seen throughout Europe, not just in WE countries, and telecom services in fact proportionately accounted for more revenues in CEE (49%) than in WE (54%) in 2013.
The clear message was that connectivity is driving growth and that this applies as much to CEE as the rest of the continent.
Almost inevitably, the issue of consolidation also came up for discussion. It was generally accepted that cable is now entering a second phase of the process, despite there still being some 6,000 operators in Europe, with more deals between industries, such as cable and mobile companies (Vodafone, for instance), likely to happen in the future.
These are certainly interesting times for Europe’s cable industry. It’s just a pity that developments in CEE get so little mention at such prestigious events as Cable Congress.
