The distribution of HD services is a controversial issue in Slovakia.
Differences between leading players in the country’s TV industry were laid bare at this week’s Bratislava Business Briefing, organised jointly by Broadband TV News and Telenor Satellite Broadcasting.
Speaking out most forcibly was Martin Miller, the CEO of UPC Broadband Slovakia. As the country’s leading cable operator, the latter has certainly been no laggard in providing HD channels in its offer, starting with two in 2008 and increasing the total to 26 as of last year.
However, Miller declared himself “not excited” by HD and unwilling to enter into a race with other providers to offer the most services.
More importantly, he said he refused to pay for such services and asked, “who is supposed to pay for additional costs of broadcasters and operators?”
Two opposing, though different, opinions were voiced by Zdenko Rysavy, the technical director at TV Markiza, and Andrej Dolezal, his counterpart at the public broadcaster RTVS.
The former said that the CME-backed station had started offering HD in 2007 and switched off SD on November 29 last year. Its investment in HD amounted to $12 million over the last three years.
Looking to the future, Rysavy pointed out that SD services would no longer be available on satellite from January 1, 2017.
Asked whether there was a common strategy on HD by CME broadcasters in CEE, he said that there wasn’t, though TV Markiza worked closely with its Czech sister station TV Nova.
Andrej Dolezal, on the other hand, spoke about the lack of funding at RTVS compared to its counterparts elsewhere in the region.
He also said that there is now no must-carry in Slovakia other than for RTVS’ channels. As a result, commercial players can ask for fees for the distribution of their channels.
Dolezal stressed that RTVS would never charge for access to public service media.
He also spoke about a recently signed agreement with Skylink – the impression given was that it had been hard to reach – and an existing one it has with Towercom.
Furthermore, he said that RTVS had adopted a new strategy with HD and will sell simulcrypt.
Meanwhile, Jaromir Glisnik, a member of the board at M7 Group, said that Skylink now has 715,000 serviced customers in Slovakia, excluding multiroom. It gives access to 130 TV channels, 42 of which are in HD.
As of this month, 26 of the latter were provided on a pay and 16 on a free basis.
Glisnik said that satellite services were received in 50% of homes and 71% of HDTV homes in Slovakia. The respective figures for Skylink itself were 34% and 56%.
Juraj Bóna, the senior manager for product management in the mass media market at Slovak Telekom, made the point that the telco’s IPTV service Magio included HD service from its launch date in 2006, with them being seen as a differentiator.
Their number increased by 59% in the three years to April 2015 and the offer, at 40, is now among the largest in Slovakia. However, HD was becoming a standard and no longer a value driver.
Bóna also dismissed the suggestion of 4k services coming to Slovakia anytime soon.
Vlastimil Lakatos, head of TV services at Antik Telekom, concluded the presentations with what were two telling questions. The first was are HD channels just the trigger for pay-TV and secondly is the Slovak TV market an inspiration for other regions?
Sadly, both were left unanswered, and the debate on HD services is likely to continue for some time yet in Slovakia.
