Sharp differences remain over the introduction of carriage fees by some of Slovakia’s leading broadcasters.
Speaking at the Bratislava Business Briefing, organised jointly by Broadband TV News and SES, Robert Tavoda, the president of the APKT cable association, said that customers are asking why they have to pay for channels they can otherwise receive FTA.
This was the case with services operated by JOJ, while in the case of Markiza it had at least terminated the terrestrial distribution of its channels. Tavoda also confirmed that broadcasters other than JOJ and Markiza are now also asking for carriage fees. They include the news channel TA3.
Mojmor Mlcoch, the CFO at JOJ Group, said that the definition of FTA and pay-TV services was becoming increasingly mixed up and there was a need to look at the operators’ market and how it has evolved in the last few years in such areas as packaging.
JOJ is under pressure in terms of the business model and operators have much bigger potential to do what they like with its content, such as delivering it OTT.
Meanwhile, Zdenko Rysavy, the CTO at Markiza Group, said he was surprised that some operators had created packages without Markiza channels. However, the company felt fine and would wait to see what the market brings.
