In terms of importance, Cyfrowy Polsat is to Poland what BSkyB is to the UK: the number one player in its pay-TV market.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the sudden departure of its president Dominik Libicki, who headed the company since 2001, has sent shockwaves throughout the local industry.
Amid speculation as to why he decided to leave – the official reason was differences of opinion as to how to achieve commonly agreed strategic objectives – some observers have already described his exit as the end of an era.
Cyfrowy Polsat is one of the big success stories of Central and East European broadcasting. It started off as a cheap and cheerful DTH platform going head to head with the more sophisticated Wizja TV and Cyfra+, which eventually merged to form a ‘new’ Cyfra+. More recently, it has also competed with n, which in turn merged with Cyfra+ last year into a new rival named nc+.
Although Cyfrowy Polsat was initially looked down on by its rivals, it quickly built up a large subscriber base. Just as importantly, and in particular following the launch of n, which introduced such additional services as HD channels and PVR into the country, it began to reinvent itself in a spectacular way.
This involved hugely improving its channel offer and introducing a wide array of additional services. Today, the company’s assets include a mobile TV service, the highly successful on demand platform ipla and Cyfrowy Polsat Technologies, which manufactures set-top boxes.
Following restructuring, Cyfrowy Polsat now also oversees the national commercial broadcaster Polsat, which was previously its parent company.
The entrepreneur Zygmunt Solorz-Zak, who founded Polsat and remains the main shareholder in the business, made a strategic decision a while back to enter the telco market. This resulted in the company acquiring Polkomtel and ultimately creating a company that provides its customers a wide array of TV, telecom and even financial services.
Although the general consensus is that Cyfrowy Polsat has lost an extremely talented manager, the show will go on, with the company continuing to strengthen its position in what is an increasingly converged marketplace.
