The last few days have been quite eventful for the VOD market in Poland.
Besides the long-awaited launch of SkyShowtime, they saw TVN Warner Bros. Discovery enter into a strategic partnership with Ringier Axel Springer Polska (RASP) to re-launch the latter’s VOD.pl.
VOD.pl is one of the longest established on demand platforms in Poland and will now operate as an AVOD service, complementing TVN Warner Bros. Discovery’s paid-for offers Player and HBO Max. This comes at a time when AVOD is becoming increasingly popular globally and VOD.pl will no doubt strengthen TVN Warner Bros. Discovery position in Poland’s on demand market.
For SkyShowtime, its launch in Poland came in the second and final phase of the service’s Central and East European expansion on February 14 and it is now available in 14 markets across the region. Further launches in Spain and Andorra at the end of this month will complete its European rollout.
How both the re-launched VOD.pl and newcomer SkyShowtime fare in the highly competitive and indeed overcrowded Polish on demand market remains to be seen. Although Netflix is well ahead of other services – it is accessed by three times as many internet users as its nearest rival – there are also several well-established platforms including ones operated by Polsat and Canal+, not to mention Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
Viaplay, itself relatively new to Poland, ended 2022 with 1.2 million subscribers in the country, the same total as in the Netherlands.
Consolidation could well be on the horizon, with even a market as large as Poland unable to sustain so many services in the long term. Although TVN Warner Bros. Discovery has described its deal with RASP as a strategic partnership, it is to all intents and purposes a takeover of VOD.pl. The company may in the future merge some of its services in the country.
The public broadcaster TVP went down this route at the end of last year by replacing its existing on demand services with a single platform named TVP VOD.
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