Half a million Poles, or around 5% of the population, now pay to receive Netflix.
The stats were provided by Szymon Karbowski, development director at Vector X Labs, in a presentation ahead of a panel discussion at PIKE 2018 entitled New challenges on the TMT market.
In the discussion, Jacek Kobierzycki, executive director of Toya, one of the country’s leading cable operators, said that in effect 2 million people now watch Netflix in homes that have paid for the service. People realise they have to pay for content, and in that sense Netflix has helped change the mentality in Poland.
Kobierzycki also spoke in some length about a digital platform that Toya launched eight years ago. Although it includes SVOD and FVOD, the company regards it as a cross-promotion for linear channels.
Meanwhile, Jakub Brzeczkowski, regional VP for Eutelsat in Poland, said he was pleased with the success of the Polish public broadcaster’s channel TVP 4K, which operated temporarily during this summer’s World Cup in Russia and was distributed by Hot Bird.
TVP, according to a representative on the panel, is now planning to launch a full-time channel in 4K.
Brzeczkowski added that six Ultra HD channels on Hot Bird are now available in Poland. While the willingness of clients to receive them is still a barrier, the success of TVP 4K has shown there is an appetite.
On the other hand, as indicated earlier, ARPU is low and it is hard to find a business model.
