TELENOVELA BLOCK.pages 24 - 30: - Discop

egion
THE CEE IS OF GROWING IMPORTANCE
TO WESTERN CABSAT OPERATORS
by Bob Jenkins
Joel Krutz, Head of Finance and
Operations, Emerging Markets at
US giant MTV is categoric. “We will,”
he insists, “over the coming years
make a substantial investment of both
time and money in the region.”
Explaining the thinking behind this
strategy, Krutz continues, “the CEE is
a very important part of our overall
international strategy because it
offers so much potential for growth
when compared to the West.”
The view that the CEE offers great
potential for Western cabsat operators
is shared by Katarzyna Kieil, Vice
President, CEE, Discovery Networks
Europe, who describes the region as
being, “extremely important,” to
Discovery’s international strategy.
Kieil is keen to emphasise that
Discovery recently opened a Warsaw
office with a staff of twenty, to service
their operations in the region, and
that, “as our business grows in the
future, we will explore opening new
offices in those markets where we see
the potential for growth, so as to
reach closer to our platform operators
and also to create localised services
which have a real resonance for
viewers.” Although Kieil insists, “we
never disclose internal forecasts”, she
remains confident that, “there is significant
growth potential in the
region.”
Wayne Durford, Director of Chan -
nels at BBC Worldwide, is reluctant to
give hard estimates for growth. The
BBC only operates one channel in the
region, its advertising free, general
entertainment channel Prime, and,
says Durford, “the future of Prime in
the region is very difficult to predict,”
but he does suggest that, “Poland
must have plateaued,” although he
does see potential in Hungary and the
Czech Republic, “which,” according to
Durford, “are countries where we still
have a lot more work to do.” But, by
way of underlining the significance of
the CEE to Prime, which Durford
describes as “extremely important to
Prime’s overall business strategy,” he
reveals that, “currently, we have 22
million subscribers throughout EMEA
and of these, 3.5 million are in the
CEE.”
More forthcoming is Zone Vision’s
Commercial Sales Director, CEE, Mark
Young. Young claims that, “we have
teams in each of the territories who
are very close to the action, enabling
us to be accurate in our forecasting,”
and he goes on to reveal that these
forecasts predict annual growth of,
“between 15% - 40% over the coming
twelve months, depending on the territory.”
Another who views the CEE as
primed for growth is Bruce Tuchman,
Executive Vice-President, MGM Net -
works; although there are some
unusual features of the MGM offering
when compared with operations such
as MTV, Discovery, and BBC Prime. To
begin with, MGM Channels are based
exclusively on the library of 4,000 plus
titles and offer no new production.
Also, as Tuchman explains, in relation
to the CEE specifically, there are a
number of other distinctions. “Firstly,”
he points out, “under communism
Hollywood was very much the enemy,
and therefore very few of our films
have been seen in the CEE. This,” he
continues, “is both a positive and a
negative. On the positive side, it
means that there is a greater demand
for our movies which are new and
exciting to audiences in the area.
However, this also means that frequently
we don’t have local language
versions for enough of the movies to
sustain an operation.” Even so, MGM
has taken the first tentative steps in
the region launching a year ago on
MTV+ in Russia, and more recently on
Liberty Global in Warsaw, which
Tuchman describes as, “testing
Poland”.
For Discovery’s Kieil the process
of identifying a new market, or the
potential to launch a new service in a
market in which the factual behemoth
already has a presence begins with,
“closely following consumer trends, as
well as working with our platform operators
to assess which services will
have local appeal.” This process, she
suggests, would run alongside, “a
number of focus groups to gauge viewers’
response to a new product offering.”
Additionally, Discovery would,
“assess the potential for delivering ad
sales, and, crucially, the talent to be
found within the independent production
community.”
MTV’s Krutz says the process of
establishing a new service in a territory,
“usually begins with us receiving a
proposition from a potential partner.”
Once this has happened, Krutz details
a number of assessments that the
Viacom-owned giant would make.
“Firstly,” he reveals, “we would assess
the local economy, and, should this
seem promising, we would look at the
TV market within that economy with a
view to establishing whether it is
mature, or whether it is a market
offering potential for growth.” But
Krutz insists, “the major factor is
always the partner. We need to be
certain that the potential partner has
the right business plan and background,
and, most importantly, that
they have the right hopes and ambitions
for the MTV brand. After all, we
have spent twenty-five years building
the brand, and we are not about to
carelessly give it away.”
Growth is the key fact BBC
Worldwide’s Durford says that they
are looking at when assessing a potential
new market for BBC Prime.
Whatever assessments Western
cabsat companies have to make, two
things can be said with certainty:
they’re in the CEE to stay, and they’re
in the CEE to grow. }
discop link 03 www.discop.com march 2006 11