Slowly but surely, a power shift is taking place in the TV industry in Central and Eastern Europe.
Over the years, we have come to accept the dominant – or near dominant – positions of Liberty Global and CME in the region’s cable and broadcast sectors respectively. However, other companies, among them Deutsche Telekom and Telekom Austria, are becoming increasingly prominent, while several long-standing players, including MTG, remain very much in the picture.
At the same time, excluding of course Russia, which is a special case due its ownership rules and where all players are essentially locally owned, there are several key non-international companies making waves. The main one is probably Poland’s Cyfrowy Polsat, which besides operating one of Europe’s largest DTH platforms (3.5m + subs) also has extensive broadcast and online interests (Polsat and other proprietary channels, ipla, respectively), a mobile TV service and decoder manufacturing business and is spearheading the rollout of LTE in the country.
Furthermore, there are international players, such as Canal+, which have decided to limit their activities to just one country in the region (Poland). Others, like RCS&RDS, have meanwhile pulled back to what they consider their core markets, in its case Hungary and Romania.
While Liberty Global and CME are far from yesterday’s men, on current form they may not be tomorrow’s. Following on from recent key acquisitions in Germany, the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, Liberty Global’s ‘centre of gravity’ is now very much in Western Europe. What is more, its operations in CEE are essentially being run from outside the region, and while not neglected certainly less important than before.
CME, on the other hand, has experienced several years of alarming decline. While it may or may not be ‘saved’ by its current management, and of course backers Time Warner, there is an acceptance that it will have to sell some of its assets. The next one to two years will probably be the most critical to date in the company’s near quarter century history.
While the future is always difficult to predict, especially in a fast-moving industry such as ours, change in who are the top players in certainly on the horizon.