Polish cable operators have expressed concerns about HBO Go having been made available as a standalone service to all viewers in the country.
Quoted by Wirtualne Media, Jerzy Straszewski, the president of the Polish Chamber of Electronic Communications (PIKE), said that rather than fight Netflix or HBO, cable operators should stay ahead of the competition by immediately offering the services in a package. However, added that HBO’s move should have been expected and it had effectively destroyed the order in the market that had existed for over 20 years.
Meanwhile, Tomasz Zuranski, the chairman of the board at Vectra, Poland’s second largest cable operator, was keen to emphasise the additional features Vectra offers to its customers. These include the use of the HBO OD library, which is comparable to the content in HBO Go.
So, too, was Bartlomiej Kasinski, the director of strategy and development at Multimedia.
On the other hand, Michal Bartowiak, a member of the board at Inea, said that any move by HBO on the internet would ultimately support the Inea’s business.
Wirtualne Media says this comes against the backdrop of the findings of a study by SW Research, undertaken in late Febrary, that show that up to one million internet users in Poland would opt for HBO Go if it became available as a standalone service.
As previously reported by Broadband TV News, Poland became the latest market in Europe where this was the case in late March.
