Television audiences in the Czech Republic are being shaped by two very different trends.
According to the latest Atmedia Index research for the first half of 2025, prices for pay-TV continues to rise, though the popularity of such services continues to grow. At the same time a group of viewers remain loyal to free-to-air terrestrial services.
The average monthly amount that viewers spend on satellite, cable or IPTV operator services increased to CZK 430 in the first half of this year, which represents a year-on-year increase of 9%. “A more significant price increase began last year, when the CZK 400 mark was exceeded for the first time. Before that, the monthly amount for pay-TV remained around CZK 390 for a relatively long time,” explains Michaela Suráková, managing director at Atmedia.
Despite rising prices, interest in pay-TV is not decreasing – quite the opposite. IPTV is experiencing the greatest growth. “The share of viewers who use IPTV or cable TV as their main platform for receiving television broadcasts has already exceeded 50%,” says Suráková. The growing interest in IPTV is related to more TV households being connected to the Internet.
Although IPTV is the dominant platform today, a significant portion of the Czech population still uses only free terrestrial broadcasting. Suráková says that with dozens of channels available many of these viewers simply have no motive for paying more for their viewing.
29% of these viewers do not want to spend money on pay-TV at all and 19% consider pay TV to be too expensive. However, if they decided to use pay TV, they would be willing to pay an amount ranging from CZK 100 to 400 per month. “This is a so-called wider price acceptance range, and we determined its range based on the Atmedia index research for the first half of this year,” explains Michaela Suráková. According to her, the optimal price point is around CZK 150 per month. For this amount, viewers would expect access to a service that offers more than 100 television stations, of which at least 70 are in HD quality, the ability to watch and record programs, or the ability to watch video content on four devices simultaneously.
Atmedia represents a collection of 20 pay channels, available on the Czech TV market.
