Poland continues to underline its position as one of the most dynamic TV markets in Central and Eastern Europe.
While most attention in the region is currently focused on events in Ukraine and Russia and how they are impacting negatively on their respective TV industries, Poland remains quite buoyant.
Take Cyfrowy Polsat, whose interests include the leading DTH platform of the same name.
Results just published by the company show that it ended last year with almost 570,000 subscribers to its smartDOM service. Launched jointly with the mobile company Plus in February 2014 and offering customers an integrated package of products including TV, LTE-based internet and telephony, it should reach the one million-subscriber mark sometime this year.
Cyfrowy Polsat is also set to almost triple its investment this year, from PLN335 million (€80.8 million) in 2014 to PLN900 million, or around 10% of its revenues.
Elsewhere, the national commercial broadcaster and Cyfrowy Polsat rival TVN ended 2014 on a strong note financially, posting a net result of PLN189 million for the full year. Ahead of the sale of a majority stake in the company currently held by Canal+ and ITI Group – most probably to Time Warner or Germany’s Bauer – it continues to launch more thematic channels, with up to three (TVN Fabula, TVN Sportive and TVN Activ) in the pipeline, while the DTH platform nc+, which it jointly owns, continues to perform well.
Meanwhile, the public broadcaster TVP remains a key player on several fronts and certainly a leader in the introduction of HbbTV services.
It is interesting to note that in terms of audience share the Polish market today is more fragmented than ever. The big winners seem to be commercial DTT channels, most of them quite new, rather than the established broadcasters TVP, Polsat and TVN.
In the cable sector, the market leader UPC Polska has finally rolled out the full Horizon service, while its nearest competitors Vectra and Multimedia Polska continue to gain more digital TV customers.
At the same time, Netia, the country’s leading alternative telco, is also starting to establish itself as a cable operator following its acquisition of networks from UPC Polska that previously belonged to Aster.
While this may not exactly be a golden age for Polish TV, it is certainly an interesting and lively period. All being well, it should continue for a long time.
