What were the highlights in Central and Eastern Europe’s TV industry in 2017?
While it was a year in which standout stories were few and far between, there was certainly much to talk about on the M&A front.
Take the sale of CME’s broadcast assets in Croatia and Slovenia to United Media. The €230 million deal, announced in early July, was expected to close by the end of the year but subsequently ran into difficulties, with the Croatian Electronic Media Council (AZTN) deciding to block it.
What is more, as the year drew to a close it was reported that the Chinese investment group CEFC was targeting CME’s entire portfolio in the region, which also includes broadcast assets in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
At the same, we spent the whole year waiting on a decision from the Polish competition authority (UKIK) on the sale of Multimedia Polska, the country’s third largest cable operator, to Liberty Global’s UPC Polska, the market leader.
That is not to say that there were no deals completed in 2017. Modern Times Group (MTG), for instance, continued its exit from Central and Eastern Europe, selling its free-TV, pay-TV, digital and radio businesses in the Baltic Republics to Providence Equity Partners and at the same time completing the sale of its 50% stake in the Czech broadcaster FTV Prima Holding to Denoma Media.
Meanwhile in Hungary, Romanian-owned Digi acquired the telco Invitel, one of its main competitors.
As the year drew to a close, we also saw a flurry of activity in Poland, with Cyfrowy Polsat buying Netia, its daughter company Polsat a number of thematic channels from ZPR Media, and Macquarie snapping up Inea, one of the leading cable operators in the country.
On the content side, we saw Netflix make progress in many markets in the region, especially those in which it had introduced at least some degree of localisation. However, in one of those markets – Poland – the SVOD service ShowMax, making its European debut, got off to a flying start and posed a direct challenge.
In Hungary, the national transmission company Antenna Hungária launched no fewer than two OTT services late in the year, one of which was a standalone sports offer.
At the same time, the standalone service HBO Go became available in no fewer than 11 regional markets as 2017 drew to a close.
Slowly but surely, Ultra HD services started to become available in the region in 2017. In the case of Russia, this was largely thanks to the activities of Tricolor TV, which had earlier also pioneered the introduction of HD services in the country.
Needless to say, there were also numerous agreements between key industry players in 2017. They included ones between Netflix and Deutsche Telekom and an extension of a strategic partnership between SPI International/Filmbox and Telekom Austria Group (TAG).
All in all 2017 was a busy year in CEE. 2018, which this column will preview next week, promises to be even more so.
