Much has happened at Central European Media Enterprises (CME) since it was acquired by PPF Group two and a half years ago.
Earlier this week I had the privilege of visiting the company’s headquarters in Prague to meet with some of its leading executives.
The impression I got was one of rapid progress under the ownership of what is seen as a long-term investor, with the focus being on producing more local content – programming assets have almost doubled in value – and developing the streaming service Voyo. Geographic expansion is also on the agenda, with RTL Croatia having been bought by the company last year and now grouped with its Slovenian operation as CME Adria.
Voyo in many ways encapsulates the new PPF Group era. Launched around a decade ago, it had arguably stagnated in recent years, certainly in subscriber numbers. When the new management took over it set a target of one million paying customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia by 2025.
This was initially met with scepticism but now looks likely to be exceeded. Indeed, as of this month the streaming service already had 560,000 in the two countries. Elsewhere, it had 160,000 in Slovenia and 100,000 in Romania, with the latter figure having doubled in the last year.
Given that it operates in markets served by leading global players such as Netflix, HBO Max and Disney+, Voyo is more than holding its own. In Slovakia and Slovenia, for instance, its brand strength is ahead of Netflix, while in the Czech Republic it is almost on a par.
This September will see RTL Croatia’s SVOD service Play Premium renamed Voyo, while its AVOD offer will no longer be called Play but RTL.hr.
Elsewhere, CME’s Czech broadcaster TV Nova is working on a new version of its AVOD service nova.cz that will be delivered via HbbTV.
CME sees Voyo as a premium service and at present has no plans to introduce an ad-supported tier. What is more, it is developing content for Voyo that resonates with viewers and is driving subscriptions. To date, nine Voyo Originals (scripted series) have been released in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and many more are under development.
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