Central Europe embraces new media

TV execs rush to establish digital pipelines

By WILL TIZARD

REALITY BITES: HBO has had a lot of success in Central Europe with local docs such as 'Silesia Strips.'

PRAGUE -- In Central and Eastern Europe, all film distribution eyes are on emerging technologies that have little to do with the much-watched American models like iTunes and Netflix -- instead, the business is gauging the parameters of digital television and Internet-based channels.

And with the European Union due to complete the transition from terrestrial to digital TV in 2012, the old battles for airwaves are giving way to claims of bandwidth.

Much of the former East Bloc is leading the way in such technology because crumbling infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe was replaced on a massive scale after the Berlin Wall came down, with the result that the newest EU member states average 30% cable coverage, and technologies like fiber-optic cable are far more developed. Internet use is also higher in the region than in much of Western Europe. Czech high-speed cable is still developing, but Web-based TV is jumping ahead of the projected 11% of Western European households that will get it by 2010.

Some 15.6 million homes in the region are expected to have digital TV by 2010, according to industry observer Informa, with 707,000 of them in the Czech Republic -- an impressive number for a country of 10 million. Poland meanwhile will top 4.2 million and Russia 8.4 million. These viewers can, of course, record the films they watch on TV hard drives and stop, start and replay broadcasts at their leisure -- on 30 channels in Poland's case.

"We don't want to get blindsided by the growth of the other means of distribution," says David Stogel, program director at TV Nova, the Czech Republic's leading terrestrial channel. The station has become a major player in backing local film production of late, financing pics in exchange for terrestrial and cable broadcast rights. Internet rights are not yet part of such deals for foreign films aired on Nova, Stogel says, and will have to be negotiated separately, but it's clear that Web TV is on TV Nova's mind.

To help keep its market dominance, the station has added two Internet channels, tn.nova.cz, with mainly news content, and the more spicy tn.nova.cz/red, prominently featuring "one daily naked news presenter" to complement the cable TV film channel, Nova Cinema, launched in the fall.

"We're trying to figure out how best to do this," says Stogel, adding that Nova-backed Czech pics are part of the mix "in coordination with local distributors."

Whether they'll be free, charge a fee or drive Internet ads is still under discussion.

Local motion

HBO Central Europe, with well over 1.3 million subscribers serving 11 countries, is the most established pay TV player in the market, and its strategies are being closely watched by startups in new media. Among its most intriguing moves are beefing up its digital offerings of local and American films with original local docs.

"User Friendly Death," a stark, black-and-white look at the booming crematorium business in a Czech town near the Polish border, for example, has won kudos at regional film fests, while "Silesia Strips" goes backstage with women fighting to survive in the Czech/Polish border province by baring it all.

Telefonica 02, a leader in wireless Internet and mobile phone service in the region, prominently features HBO pics and original series among its incentives for subscribers. While signup numbers are closely guarded (cable provider UPC is said to have around 1 million), it's clear that major players in the region are already at work to ensure they hang onto their leads when technology opens up the market to dozens of new digital channels.

So, do many in the biz actually see Czechs watching Oscar-winning Marketa Irglova croon in the hit "Once" on their PCs or mobile phones? Judging from the Czech chanteuse's prominence in the latest O2 TV subscription drive, the answer's fairly evident.

Or, as Aleksander Kutela, HBO Central Europe's senior veep for branding and original productions, puts it, as stations multiply, "viewing time is spread out over a wide range of targeted thematic channels, and viewers are taken away from major established TV stations."

Even naked newscasters could have their work cut out for them.