Lenka Hrivnáková, Author at The Association of Commercial Television

MEGAUPLOAD SERVER BOSS TO BE EXTRADITED TO THE U.S. BY NEW ZEALAND FOR PROSECUTION

New Zealand is to extradite internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload, one of the biggest and most popular sites for sharing pirated content on the internet, to the United States for prosecution. British public broadcaster BBC reported that New Zealand’s Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith signed the extradition order, making Dotcom the loser of his long legal battle.

Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz in Germany, made huge money from internet piracy, according to US authorities, who say Dotcom and his associates defrauded movie studios and record labels of more than half a billion dollars (11.5 billion kronor) and made more than $175 million selling advertising and premium subscriptions. But Dotcom claimed he had no control over the content users uploaded to Megaupload. The server was blocked by authorities in 2012.

New Zealand police arrested the entrepreneur in January 2012 at the request of US authorities. Dotcom spent a month in custody before being released to house arrest. He has repeatedly defended himself in New Zealand courts against extradition to the United States.

U.S. authorities accuse him of several crimes, including copyright infringement and money laundering. He could face years in prison.

In relation to his extradition to the US, Dotcom wrote that “the obedient US colony in the South Pacific decided to extradite me because of what users were uploading to Megaupload”.

At its peak, Megaupload was the 13th most popular site on the Internet.

Source: idnes.cz

ANTI-PIRACY ALLIANCE ACE SETTLES COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CASES WITH IPTV OPERATORS

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has announced settlements with three US-based illegal IPTV operators.

As part of the settlements, the operators are required to pay over $2 million in financial compensation to ACE.

Working with its studio members, last year ACE identified the operators of the services that were illegally distributing thousands of movies and television shows and began taking enforcement action. After being confronted by ACE and threatened with potential legal action, the operators agreed to pay financial compensation, shutter their illegal services permanently, cooperate with ACE, and transfer their services’ domains.

The illicit services include Anytime TV, Cobra Servers, Elite Servers, and Lost Highway Media, each of which was engaged in mass copyright infringement. These piracy services collectively had thousands of subscribers and received hundreds of thousands of domain visits annually. Among the domains that will be transferred to ACE as part of the settlements are anytimetv.us, anytimewebhosting.com, elite-servers.com, losthighway-media.com, and webhostsupply.com.

“These landmark settlements should serve as a warning to illegal streaming operators about the severe penalties they will face for breaking copyright law, including legal actions, substantial financial settlements and fines, and jail time,” said Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer for the Motion Picture Association.

“Although the multimillion-dollar settlements may seem significant, this figure still represents only a fraction of the losses caused by copyright infringement. The theft of digital content harms both local and foreign economies, threatens jobs, undermines investment, reduces tax contributions to governments, and stifles creativity.”

Source: broadbandtvnews.com

1 IN 5 SLOVAKS ADMIT TO ONLINE PIRACY

47% of people in Slovakia use at least one paid platform to watch movies, series or music, according to a survey conducted on behalf of the Association of Television Broadcasters of Slovakia (ATVS).

The number of people who pay for on demand services in Slovakia is also increasing, in line with the launch of streaming services by local commercial channels. 47% are now subscribing to such a service.

The survey, by CreditCall was conducted in the form of telephone interviews with a sample of 1,000 respondents.

However, piracy of audiovisual content still remains a major problem in Slovakia, with almost 20% of the population admitting to it. As many as 10.63% of respondents said in the survey that they access both legal and online content from the internet; 9% of respondents confirmed that they obtain movies, series or music exclusively from pirated sources.

” We assume that in reality this number can be even higher, because people do not always admit to these activities,” explains Lucia Tandlich, director of the legal department of the Markíza group, which runs six TV channels including TV Markíza, Doma, Dajto and Markíza KRIMI.

“The availability of pirated content on the Internet remains a problem. Not only does it significantly make the work of domestic creators, who already have to struggle with a lack of funding when creating, but this deliberate violation of copyright also makes services more expensive for paying viewers.”

Of the 56.17% of Slovaks who, according to the survey, watch or download content from online platforms, 48.39% of them do so at least once a week and 23.21% even daily. So if it happens illegally, the companies that have purchased licenses for the content or produce it lose huge sums of money.

New legislation, designed to prevent the spread of illegal content over the internet, has been included in the Slovak copyright act, which also incorporates the relevant European directive on copyright.

“Public education remains important. Pirated content should be treated in the same way as stowaways on public transport are treated. It is important to realise that with this approach you can ultimately harm yourself by not being able to view similar content next time, because, for example, it will not be created at all. Fortunately, it seems that more and more viewers are aware of this,”

concludes Tandlich, adding that more than 42% of people in the survey said that it is rather important or very important for them to support creators and the creative industry using legal content monitoring services.

Source: broadbandtvnews.com

PRIMA INTRODUCES SUBTITLES FOR THE DEAF ON CNN PRIMA NEWS

Prima is adding automatically generated subtitles to its shows on CNN Prima News using machine learning. They can be used by deaf viewers during terrestrial broadcasts.

Prima Group has added software created by technology company exe to the linear broadcast of news station CNN Prima News, which automatically converts spoken speech into written form. Viewers will see it as subtitles in the picture.

“This tool works on all terrestrial broadcasters, just turn on the hidden subtitle option. But we also pass subtitles to other operators. It’s up to them to decide whether to let them go on to their networks. This service is available for all programmes on CNN Prima News, it is not only triggered during commercials,” described Patrik Slavik, Director of Television Technology at the Prima Group.

“The primary goal of this technology is to bring real-time television to a wider audience,” added Richard Hrabovsky, CEO of Exe.

Prima has previously introduced mVoice audio descriptions of the plot for visually impaired and blind viewers on all its channels that support AD signal distribution (Prima, Prima Love, Prima Star, Prima Krimi, Prima Cool, Prima Max and Prima Show).

The Prima Group also uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to manage the official social media profiles of CNN Prima News and lifestyle magazines. The Media Club dealership, for its part, has incorporated AI into the optimisation of client campaigns.

Source: mediaguru.cz

SPAIN: 1,000+ BARS CONVICTED OF FOOTBALL PIRACY

La Liga, the Spanish sports association, reports that it has obtained more than a thousand convictions against hotels, bars and restaurants that have engaged in football piracy.

This figure, which translates to a favourable ruling every two days, is attributed to a change in strategy that La Liga implemented in January 2019, when it began to report offenders suspected of committing piracy, via criminal proceedings, as a means of combating a problem that results in annual losses of around €600 million for Spanish football clubs.

An estimated 170,000 establishments in Spain are potential subscribers to football, of which approximately 50,000 were subscribed to La Liga’s HORECA channel in the 2023/24 season.

This season La Liga investigators were able to identify at least 15,000 establishments using illegal broadcasts, committing not only an offence against the intellectual property of the Clubs, but also engaging in unfair competition against establishments that do comply with the law. The damaging effect is therefore double: against football and against the hotel and catering sector in Spain, resulting in losses of almost €35 million a year.

Regarding penalties, convicted offenders pay an average of around €1,000 between a fine and the payment of civil liability. Continuing to engage in the offence would entail progressively higher penalties due to repeat offences and having a criminal record.

The number of convictions will continue to increase, given there are currently 295 cases already in the pre-trial phase, and a further 133 pending trial, with 86 per cent of the cases that go to trial end in a conviction.

Last season alone (2023/24), legal proceedings were brought directly against 738 other public establishments without the need to file a police report, thanks to the investigative work carried out by La Liga inspectors who documented occurrences of piracy in person. La Liga’s activity goes beyond Spain’s borders as it has filed more than 20 legal claims in the Principality of Andorra as well.

Legal action is essential. La Liga says it has the equipment, technology and expertise to tackle this problem, but legal tools are needed to block content quickly and swiftly during matches, rather than after the live event is over.

Source: advanced-television.com

ARRESTS IN ILLEGAL STREAMING CRACKDOWN

In one of the largest operations to date, UK intellectual property protection body FACT and partners, including Sky, have taken action across the UK to combat illegal streaming and the use of unlawfully modified Firestick devices.

In a month-long coordinated and sequenced nationwide surge, FACT and police targeted individuals providing unauthorised access to premium TV content, including film, television and live sporting events.

From Essex to Dundee, 40 illegal IPTV operators were identified, investigated, and served with official warnings. Cease-and-desist notices were delivered in person by FACT and police, and through post and email, instructing those running the services to immediately halt their illegal activity or face criminal prosecution. The operation targeted individuals across the UK, including London, South East England, West Midlands, North West, North East, North Wales and Scotland.

These notices are part of a broader campaign to disrupt and dismantle piracy operations. Three warrants were also served leading to the arrest of a 42-year-old man in Nottingham, a 51-year-old man from Widnes and a 52-year-old man in Stockton-on-Tees. Digital devices and ‘fully loaded’ smart TV devices or Firesticks were also seized from the addresses and are currently undergoing forensic examination by FACT.

Additionally, Sky actively works to remove listings and social media posts selling illegal IPTV subscriptions and ‘loaded’ Firesticks in the UK and Ireland. During this intensification period they removed over 3,000.

This targeted intensification period over June and July has already proven highly effective. It has resulted in the majority of illegal services being taken down and their advertising removed from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.

FACT works with sports rights holders and broadcast partners, including Sky, The Premier League, TNT Sports and Virgin Media, to investigate and prosecute suppliers of illegal streaming services, other IP crimes, and those accessing illegal content. Illegal IPTV undermines broadcasters’ rights by diverting revenue streams, enabling users to access premium content without providing proper compensation.

Kieron Sharp, FACT CEO, said: “These measures underscore the serious consequences of engaging in such illicit activities. We thank the police services involved for their invaluable assistance in this operation, particularly Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and the North East Regional Crime Unit for executing the warrants.

“The rise in illegal IPTV operators using modified Firesticks to unlawfully access premium content is a growing concern. This not only infringes upon copyright laws but deprives content creators and distributors of their rightful earnings and disrupts the economic balance of the creative industry. FACT and our partners are steadfast in our commitment to disrupt these criminal operations. This is just the start of our enforcement efforts, with more actions planned.”

Matt Hibbert, Group Director of Anti-Piracy at Sky, added: “The action taken by FACT, police and Sky across the country sends a strong message to those involved in illegal streaming operations that they will be identified, and they will face consequences.

“We are very grateful to our partners for this latest wave of enforcement, and we will continue to work together to protect consumers from the risks of illegal streams. To this end, Sky proudly supports educational campaigns, including BeStreamWise.com, which highlights the risks of piracy and directs consumers to safe ways to enjoy the content they love.”

Source: advanced-television.com

SUNDAY NOON IS THE “GOLDEN TIME” FOR HOBBY SHOWS ON PRIMA

Prima has concentrated its hobby programmes around Sunday lunchtime. The series of programmes forms an important vertical, which it also exploits commercially.

Four shows broadcast between 12:00 and 14:00 every Sunday formed the backbone of TV Prima’s Sunday programming this spring season. To the trio of established programmes Receptář prima nápadů, Libovky by Pepa Libický and Vychytávky by Láďa Hruška, the programme Zahradník po ruce was added in mid-April. Prima has already announced that hobby topics will become an important axis of one of its thematic verticals, which it will offer to advertisers. In addition to TV shows, this media group includes the websites Českýkutil.cz, Primanápady.cz, Zahrádkářská poradna.cz and PrimaDoma.TV. The range of online video programmes with a hobby focus is even wider than the aforementioned TV titles. Social media and performance campaigns for clients are also on offer. We spoke about hobby shows with representatives of Prima Doma Media, which creates hobby content for the Prima Group. Stanislav Knotek (12%) and Jiří Kadrnka (8%) are also minority owners of this company, which is majority owned by Prima Media Club Group.

This spring, Prima has expanded its Sunday hobby shows to include the new feature Gardener at Hand. The number of programmes in this block increased to four and the novelty complemented Receptář prima nápadů, Vychytávky Ládi Hruška and Libovky Pepa Libický. How is the whole block doing on air?

It is essential to say at the outset what a hobby is. The band airs around Sunday lunchtime, when the whole family is sitting in front of the TV, and our job is to make the shows interesting for all members of the household who are watching. So that every member of the family can find their own theme in our hobby programmes. From the kids, to the parents, to the grandparents. So it’s not just about introducing workshop topics such as tools, gardening, or affectionate dog training, but the whole household, which is a broader range, including insurance, energy, savings and so on. Newly in Libovky, for example, modern building technologies, or on the contrary, the nowadays very resonant topics of recycling and upcycling.

The four programmes have a net time of two hours, which is equivalent to the length of a feature film. The entire block reaches an audience of around 300 000 viewers over the age of 15, with a share of 16-18% of the audience, which we consider to be a solid result in this day and age. Moreover, we are only talking about the viewership in a linear TV broadcast without reruns. The other thing is that each show has its own social media accounts, including active industry groups, which bring in tens of thousands more followers and millions of users on the networks. For example, within Prima Doma’s online portfolio, that’s 12 million views of short hobby videos a year. We also leverage partner resources, such as Stream.cz, where there are an additional 2 million views of our videos per year.

Can the reach of hobby shows be described in summary? Or do you provide clients with reach numbers on a channel-by-channel basis?

One thing is the reach of linear broadcasting, which we talked about. Prima Doma is the primary vertical in the hobby segment, which means we cover everything from TV broadcasting, to online, social networks and the print magazine (Prima gadgets, published in cooperation with Prima’s agency Solootions and Mafra, ed.). The aggregate reach is wide. Each week, around 25 videos are produced during the shoot, which we continue to use in various digital forms on our websites and networks. This content now represents over nine thousand videos that we work with.

“Each week, around 25 videos are created during filming, which we continue to use in various digital forms on our websites and networks. This content now represents over nine thousand videos that we work with.”

Do you only create video content for the web from what is created for linear broadcast, or do you create additional content for social media and the web?

Yes, we create separate videos mainly for social media and trailers to promote shows when it comes to new viewers. Separating content in the form of videos for the internet is also necessary due to cross media campaigns so that we reach the relevant audiences well.

Hobby shows took up time around noon on TV Prima’s Sunday schedule. Have viewers got used to it?

Yes, they now know that they can find hobby programmes on Prima at this time. Of course, they have to try in a certain way to find the ideal place for a programme. It is true that it also helps that the hobby block starts at 12:00. This suits the audience, as we have found out when there were some shifts and it started later. It’s a golden time for our slot. We may have tried other slots with similar shows, mostly on the weekend, and it didn’t really work for us.

This year, the hobby shows band expanded to include a new show, Gardener at Hand. What was your intention in launching it?

We launched it for two reasons. Firstly, we see that the hobby shows band attracts viewers and can command viewership. We felt it was still untapped. And the second is that – as they say – you can never have enough garden and gardening topics. But we wanted to come up with a garden show that was something unique. We see that uniqueness in the emphasis on organic growing methods and a sustainable approach to gardening. It’s a highly topical subject today, and with this show we have the opportunity to show TV viewers through practical advice and demonstrations how they can grow their own food without the use of aggressive chemicals, how to create natural oases for the whole family, whether in the garden or on the balcony. We also feel a social obligation to make this topic more widely known.

Do you envisage expanding the block with another programme?

The entire hobby block of programmes is based on our mainstay, which is Receptář prima ideů. We can call it our incubator. If we see that some topics or sections are more interesting to our viewers, we try to offer them as separate shows, “pulling them out of the drawer”.

This is what we did, for example, with the aforementioned Gardener at Hand. The presenter of the show, Tomáš Trejbal, with his recipe column is proof of this. Tomáš is a very good presenter, an expert in the word, the show is full of ideas and he pulls it all off. We’re actually playing it safe. His ideas and tips that he presents to the audience are beneficial.

As we said, we also try to respond to trends in society, which is the case with The Gardener at Hand. It focuses on natural gardens or balcony gardening in cities. He advises people on how to grow their own potatoes in a small space in a fabric pot or save space in the garden with potato towers. Everyone in our company is familiar with mycorrhizal fungi and their effect on the soil and crops. Protecting flowering fruit trees and shrubs has certainly been something we have all dealt with in the country this year, and advice on dealing with pests using attractant plants and mechanical barriers will also be used by every gardener. This is the Gardener at Hand. It seeks to show how to care for the garden in a sustainable natural and permaculture way. We think we hit the zeitgeist and the social mood thematically as well.

And if we go back to the topic of other shows, we still have that imaginary hobby drawer full.

How big is the group of people in the Czech Republic who might be interested in hobby topics? According to Nielsen research, up to 40% of the Czech population visits chains like OBI, Hornbach or Bauhaus once a quarter, which means that the broad base could be in the millions.

Obviously, that group is not entirely small and can be measured in different ways. It can also be measured by the online portfolio, i.e. our websites, which are visited by up to 800,000 people per month depending on the season, generating up to 3.5 million marketable banner impressions and, as we said, a million views of short videos. The second metric is social media, where we have about two million people that we have a relationship with and can reach with client performance campaigns.

So a client can buy a campaign across all of the channels that you talked about…

There are several levels to this. Either we deal directly with the end client or we deal through an agency. Usually the pillar is TV, which delivers the overall reach in the population, online then reaches the younger population. With social we then target performance, i.e. leads, product sales on clients’ e-stores. On the positive side, because of our knowledge of the target audience, we can guarantee unit, minimum performance prices in advance.

“Usually the pillar is TV, which delivers the total reach in the population, online then reaches the younger population. With social, we then target performance, i.e. leads, product sales on clients’ e-stores.”

Are clients interested in using the entire vertical to its fullest?

They’re trying it out. And they usually conclude that they will increase their cooperation with us financially next year. Especially on social media, which is also due to our active work with non-commercial content. A huge asset is our social hobby audience, with whom we actively work on a daily basis. We’ve been successful so far in making performance campaigns pay off for clients. The uplift is then ultimately down to the combination of TV, online and social.

The flagship show of the entire hobby block is the Recipe Book of Primo Ideas. But are you thinking of changing any of the other hobby programmes or their faces?

Certainly not this autumn. Receptář prima idejaů is a clear constant, the flagship is also Libovky by Pepa Libický. We’re waiting to see how the new Gardener at Hand will establish itself this autumn. So far it has done well, with a total of eleven above-average episodes in the spring. And Láďa Hruška, the key face of Vychytávky, will be closing the whole hobby block in the autumn schedule. We are working with the fact that the block can be extended, we have prepared variants, but we do not count on them within this autumn.

Source: mediaguru.cz

NOVA HAS EXTENDED THE AUDIO DESCRIPTION FOR ITS STATIONS ON SKYLINK AND IN DVB-T2

Nova TV has equipped its smaller thematic programmes Nova Gold and Nova Lady with the audio description function. The accompanying service can be activated by customers of the satellite operator Skylink and viewers who receive the DVB-T2 signal of Multiplex 24.

Audiodescription is an auxiliary service for blind and partially sighted viewers. The audio commentary over and above the dialogue approximates what is happening in a particular scene. This enables visually impaired people to better understand the context. Nova Gold, for example, broadcasts older popular crime dramas, while Nova Lady offers soap operas.

Diode transcription can be switched on and off in the TV’s settings or by pressing the AD button on the remote control. The settings may vary depending on the manufacturer and model of the TV. Nova group broadcasts so called receiver mix, where the viewer can individually control the volume of the audio description and separate it from the programme sound.

All TV stations are legally obliged to make at least 3% or 4% of their programmes accessible to people with visual impairments. Nova group has already introduced this service in the past as part of the main TV Nova station.

The addition to smaller stations is beyond the scope of the legal obligation, and Nova wants to confirm its commitment to social responsibility and inclusion.

Source: lupa.cz

WHAT TO SUBSCRIBE TO AND FOR HOW MUCH? NETFLIX, VOYO, DISNEY+, MAX AND OTHER POPULAR STREAMING SERVICES IN CR

You can watch big-name Hollywood blockbusters, the latest TV series and interesting documentaries in just a few clicks. How much? Is Netflix, Disney+ or Max better? And why subscribe to VOYO? We’ve prepared a list of the 10 most popular platforms in the Czech Republic with their subscription prices and tips on what they offer.

Streaming services are technically called VOD services after video-on-demand. They experienced their biggest boom during the coronavirus, when people couldn’t go to the cinema and generally stayed at home a lot, but their popularity is still growing. Especially with their own production of series and films. You can download the app to your TV, computer and phone.

It does have one drawback though – if you want to watch more of the flagship shows that are the talk of the town, you have to subscribe to multiple services, sometimes three. For example, you can watch Czech Iveta on Nova’s VOYO, the historical-erotic series Bridgerton on Netflix, and Pixar’s animated series on Disney+. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Below you’ll find a list of the 10 most popular services in the country.

What streaming services you can find in article:

VOYO
Disney+
Netflix
Max
Amazon Prime Video
Apple TV+
SkyShowtime
Prima+
iBroadcast
O2 TV

Read whole overview on: kupi.cz

Source: kupi.cz

PRIMA’S CEO SINGER: CHANGE IN LICENCE FEES WILL SHARPLY INCREASE CZECH TV’S REVENUES. IT COULD ROCK THE MARKET

The proposal to increase licence fee collection is facing opposition from private broadcasters. Marek Singer, CEO of the Prima media group, states that the current proposal would provide more revenue to public television and radio than the lawmakers claim.

At the end of June, the government approved the so-called major media amendment, which is supposed to strengthen the budgets of Česká televize (Czech Television, CT) and Český rozhlas (Czech Radio, CR). Among other things, the proposal foresees an increase in licence fees and a widening of the range of those who will have to pay them. The broadcasting market is therefore lobbying for hundreds of millions of Czech crowns that are crucial for how the cards will be dealt between public and private media.

The current draft to be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday, 11 July has been criticised by the opposition as well. For example, the draft envisages that the fee will apply to households that do not have a television or radio but use smartphones or internet connection. It also includes an increase in fees from companies. The number of employees will now be a determining factor and larger companies will pay up to tens of thousands of Czech crowns. The change in the law is also intended to allow fees to increase automatically in line with inflation. The Ministry of Culture, which proposed the amendment, argues that television licence fees were last increased in 2008 and radio fees even in 2005.

Thanks to the amendment, Czech Television, for example, should receive about CZK 870 million more in its budget year on year. This year, the broadcaster is working with a budget of almost CZK 8 billion.

A wave of opposition to the proposal was raised by private broadcasters. One of the critics is Marek Singer, the head of the second-largest commercial television group in the Czech Republic. Singer argues, for example, that according to the calculations of Prima and the Association of Commercial Television, CT will end up receiving much more money than the bill’s drafters claim. He states that it would be between CZK 1.5 and 2 billion and that it is not clear how the ministry arrived at its calculation. Singer said such a sharp increase could also affect the programme production market.

“No one disputes the fact that Czech Television needs more money because of inflation and other reasons. What we are questioning is whether it should be such an abrupt change that we calculate at more than 20 per cent year on year. That will rock the entire market,” says Singer in an interview for Hospodářské noviny. “We need to know where the publicly owned Czech Television will move. It is financed differently than we are, and it is not dependent on the market and its fluctuations.” If the market gets bigger, Prima will also have to respond with more investment, Singer adds. The Association of Private Broadcasters, Prima, and other companies from the broadcasting industry formulated their reservations about the media amendment in a letter sent to Prime Minister Petr Fiala in May.

Even before that – in January – you were invited to workshops to be part of the preparation of the law. Do you feel that your views were not considered?

There were two processes running simultaneously. One was that we were pointing out the illogic of first announcing how much money should be allocated to the public media and then discussing what the money should be used for. That is our main objection. In response, the Ministry of Culture set up a working group to discuss the so-called memorandum. It is supposed to specify what the new money will be for and what the public service should be. The working group did not focus on other parameters, such as whether the fee should be adjusted for inflation. All of the quantitative, financial parameters were dealt with by the government coalition in parallel, without the working group having any knowledge of it or being part of the decision-making. The coalition simply talked it over separately.

But the memorandum discussion has not been finalised…

There was no one in the working group to kind of move it forward. We tried and took the initiative to propose at least a framework specification of the public service. We somehow commented on the proposal with Czech Television and that was the end of the working groups. Then, the Minister of Culture Martin Baxa (ODS) announced the draft of the final law.

Czech Television says that it is now drafting the memorandum and will describe its public service…

It is a very commendable initiative from the new CEO, Jan Souček, and his team. For the first time, someone is trying to describe what Czech Television will do in the next five years. The memorandum should specify the content priorities of Czech Television and its digital services. But still, the process is upside down. Logically, the Government’s Legislative Council said in its comments that Czech Television should fulfil its public service rather than defining it. The state is the one who should define it. We are also concerned that it is not clear what legal force the memorandum will have. Whether it is not just a piece of paper that any future government will rewrite.

The memorandum has a certain binding force in the sense that if the CEO of Czech Television does not comply with it, he can be dismissed. Is that not enough?

We are afraid that if the new government thinks it would be nice to increase the licence fee not by 15 but by 40 crowns, the memorandum will do nothing about it.

The private broadcasters do not like the financial parameters of the government’s proposal. Why?

There is a disagreement about how much money will actually flow to Czech Television thanks to the new law. The calculation depends on what model you use. We are using two models and both of them say it will be significantly more than what they are now estimating. Czech Television already said under the previous management that it needed to add between CZK 300 million and CZK 500 million a year but according to our calculations, it will get an extra CZK 1.5 billion to CZK 2 billion.

It seems to me that you don’t want Czech Television to broadcast more advertising, and at the same time, you don’t want it to receive more money from the fee payers…

We never said that CT should not get more money. We are saying that the model is built incorrectly. We have a dual system in the Czech Republic, which should ensure that both commercial and state-owned, public-service TV and radio stations are competitive. Nobody disputes the fact that CT needs more money because of inflation and other reasons. What we are disputing is whether it should be more than 20 per cent year on year as our calculations indicate. That will rock the whole market. If that money is reflected in production prices on a one-off basis, the whole market, including CT, will be affected.

We, the members of the Association of Commercial Television, have a consensus that the amount of funding for CT should not be determined first, earlier than the memorandum is dealt with. We also see a problem in the way the indexation of licence fees is proposed, in the way fees are collected, and in the increase in fees from companies. Above all, we are concerned about the extension of the definition of a payer as it is proposed now. These things together, plus the extension of the VAT exemption, make it a very different proposal.

Why is it a problem for you that licence fees should rise in line with inflation?

Personally, I am quite bothered that this is the first state institution that has guaranteed inflation protection. Why is that? Why does the Road and Motorway Directorate not have that? Perhaps only pensions are mandatorily indexed. If I understand correctly, there is a cap on the maximum increase in fees of six per cent. But it is not entirely clear, and we will try to clarify it.

Let us come back to the memorandum. There is a public service remit specification available today. It dates back to the 1990s but it is a certain list of what the public service is supposed to be. Is that not enough?

It is not enough because the market looks different today. And if so much money is to be poured into the public service media – CZK 1.5 billion into Czech Television and half a billion into Czech Radio – the state rather than the commercial media should want to know what they will get in return. After all, it is a public service. We would need to know where the public-service Czech Television is going as it is financed differently from us and is not dependent on the market and its fluctuations. Because if the market boosts, we have to try to be complementary.

Will CT be able to have advertising on its online platforms or not? That is also not clear from the current proposal.

If my understanding is correct, CT has accepted that it will not have advertising there. But in the final proposal, there was a surprising exception for advertising on video-on-demand services. We hope that someone just overlooked it and the ministry will eventually correct it.

The draft media amendment goes to the Parliament now. There is still room to lobby for changes. What will you do?

We are not just writing letters; we are going to try to compare our models with the ministry to see the difference. We will try to talk to anyone in the government or parliament about it. We will be explaining why we think it is a risky thing to make the increase so dramatic.

Are your TV competitors in agreement with you on the bill?

I don’t want to speak for them, but I would say that they agree with us on the principles that we are discussing: when there should be a memorandum, when there should be a law, and what a reasonable rate of increase in CT’s revenue is. But we would certainly find differences in the details. Each of us has our own priorities. For example, Nova is very interested in sports rights, so logically they want to know how much CT is going to intervene in sports.

But the letter to Prime Minister Fiala is missing the signature of someone from Nova. Why?

You will have to ask Nova. (Tereza Žižková from the Nova Group’s communications department wrote in response to HN: “We do not have a fundamentally different position on the key parameters concerning the major media amendment. It is just a question of how intensely and how positively we perceive the progress in the negotiations with the Ministry of Culture.” – ed.)

Have you received any official response to the letter to the Prime Minister?

Not yet.

The television market is changing, the viewership of classical television is decreasing, IPTV is growing in importance, and viewers are watching programmes on mobile phones and tablets. Competition from video-on-demand services is growing. What do you see as the biggest threat to the existing TV business model today?

The old linear model is based on watching a broadcast that you can’t fast-forward or rewind, and you have advertising with a certain amount of footage embedded in the broadcast. Thanks to technology, there are other platforms like IPTV, tablets, or mobile devices. And for various reasons, there is either no or significantly less ad space there. But fewer people are watching traditional TV. That means that in order for TV to maintain its original ad space reach, it should sell more advertising on those other platforms. That is partially successful, but it is not one-to-one. In an hour watched, a viewer is exposed to many more minutes of video advertising on linear TV than on any other platform.

So it is a threat to ad revenue…

That’s right. That’s why TV needs to figure out a way to target advertising more. Because the better I can target, the less advertising that nobody cares about I have, and the less space I need on these new distribution platforms.

How do you target better?

It’s hard. It’s about data. You use statistical models that are based on the knowledge of who is looking at what by IP address. You try not to bother your viewers with advertising and only hit them with ads that are relevant to them.

What is the development of corporate ad spend this year?

Fortunately, the TV and radio advertising markets – the two segments we are primarily interested in – are still showing unit percentage growth. And given that we have been able to hold on to market share, that means some growth for us as well. Online advertising is still a relatively small part of the portfolio for us, although we are seeing growth there as well.

Will you have better revenues for this year than last year?

That’s hard to say right now because autumn has the most weight of the whole year, but so far it looks like it. We have invested a lot in content, video services, and so on, so our growth has not translated into profit. For the first half of the year at the group level, we expect a unit percent increase in sales and a slight growth at the net profit level. There is no dramatic development, I would say our position is stable.

According to ATO-Nielsen measurements, Prima has the second largest viewership in the 15+ audience group after Czech Television. In the past year (ended 31 May) it achieved a share of 27.58 per cent of the audience, higher than Nova. But at the same time, Nova CEO Daniel Grunt says that while overall viewership is falling, his group is increasing its lead over you in the 15-54 age group and stealing a bigger share of the smaller viewership pie. What is happening in the market?

The number of people watching TV is declining, and younger age groups are seeing slightly faster declines in viewership. And within that market, you are fighting for audience share. We are increasing that share with viewers primarily in the 40+ target age group while they are increasing in the 40- target age group.

And that doesn’t concern you? Isn’t that a signal that you need to step up efforts somewhere?

It also depends on what programming you have on offer. We have been focusing a lot on the programming for the 40+ group. We had a few shows in the 40- segment that we thought would play more. Now we have adjusted our content strategy accordingly, and we are going to have a new batch again in the autumn to balance that out.

Can you give us a hint of what it is going to look like?

I can’t reveal details yet. But there will be shows aimed at the target group of thirty-somethings and to some extent forty-somethings. That is where Nova has strong titles right now. In general, entertainment or reality shows and similar programmes work very well for this target group.

What is the big draw at Prima now?

We are held up by our traditional pillars. We have a large segment of viewers who like relationship series, for example, ZOO or Slunečná. The evergreen is crime drama – the last series of Polda had the highest ratings so far. The news coverage is also working well, with CNN Prima News reaching new record levels in viewership thanks to the EU elections, and at selected times, it was also the most-watched news channel in the country. In total, we reached 1.1 million TV viewers during the election week and nearly three million users online.

As for the news, according to a recent study by Oxford University’s Reuters Institute, the proportion of the population that avoids news coverage because it depresses them is growing rapidly. This is probably the impact of events in Gaza and Ukraine. Are you seeing this effect in your business?

Not at the moment. Maybe it is because we obviously cover big international events like Gaza or the war in Ukraine, but we are careful to intersperse that with domestic coverage. It may seem that the coverage is too regional, too local, but the Czech viewers need this balance. They cannot receive only bad news.

Have you cut back a bit on the international coverage?

All of us have cut back. When the war in Ukraine was fresh, everyone was watching. But after a while, people want to see something else. It is psychologically hard to be exposed to war in the news. There is also a big effect of the younger generation consuming a lot of news on social media, and it is hard to get them in front of screens at news time. They just watch the news in their feed of posts and videos on social media, which of course is where we are with CNN Prima News. But on the networks, the news is mixed in a different way than it is in a traditional newsroom. There, users don’t just consume pure news, they mix it all up, from pussies to Gaza.

What can be done with news to make it more appealing to younger viewers? As far as I know, Nova has tried to do that with certain formats…

That is an important question. Yes, Nova tried to do so, but I can’t judge how successful they were. I don’t quite see it in the figures. We are going to try to do that as well, but it is a lot about learning and understanding how and what messages young people want to consume. The younger generation just has different preferences, thinks about news differently, and quite often has different views on events. I’m not sure that news can be the same for them as it is for an older target audience. But this applies to other areas of video production as well. We just don’t have a recipe for news for the young yet.

The collaboration with US news station CNN is based on a renewal licence. Renewal time will be after the first five years next year. Do you know yet whether CNN will want to renew the licence with you?

CNN definitely wants us to continue. They are even referring to us as one example of how such a collaboration can work. They value us for the way in which we cover key events, for example for our ranking in the Reuters Institute, which rates the quality of news channels. In this ranking, our credibility is growing every year, and we are already behind the public service entities.

Will you have to renegotiate the price or other terms of the licence? Or is it already fixed?

We do not comment on the financial terms of the cooperation.

Your video library prima+ has announced that it already has one million registered visitors – together in the paid and free sections. In February, you said there were about 125,000 paying users. Unlike your competitor Voyo, which started with a paid model, you launched prima+ first in an ad-supported model and only then started to expand it to include a paid model. Was this approach better?

In the world, you have platforms that started with an ad-supported base and gradually added paid tiers. On the other hand, you have Netflix, which only added advertising the year before last. Given that we have had this project in its current mode for a year and a couple of months, I am happy with the results. I mean, I am never satisfied but we have learned a lot about what the content requirements are. We have yet to learn how to produce content for such a platform. Some of that is in progress to be ready for the autumn season.

Will the content you produce for prima+ eventually go to a traditional broadcast, which is what Voyo does?

No. We found that we had to change our content strategy for prima+. And that will start to show this autumn. Primarily the 20- to 40-year-olds, the ones who have left us from classical television, have switched to these services. As I have said, they have their specific content preferences – entertainment, reality shows, and some slightly more niche formats that you don’t normally do as much for the mass viewer. We are starting to get two models here – one is content for the mainstream TV viewer and the other one for the more niche viewer.

You said in an interview with HN three years ago that when PPF gets involved in something, “the competitors will stand on their tiptoes”. They are now praising the growth of Voyo and you started a similar video library later. You wanted to wait to see how they would be going. Didn’t you miss the chance?

They really reaped the benefit of being the first and they were also helped further by the post-covid wave where adoption of these online services jumped by many percent in the mainstream population as well. Fortune favours the brave – they have invested a lot of money that will probably pay them back at some point. But I can’t fully judge the whole business just from the number of subscribers (Voyo counts the number of paying users including Slovakia and reports more than 800,000 paying viewers for both markets. According to experts, it may be around 600 thousand in the Czech Republic alone – ed.). If Voyo is now making an operating profit, everything the owners invested in it has been spent taking into account depreciation. It is great in terms of market position, but it is not money. The effect of viewers switching from the traditional model to Voyo also means that the owners have reduced their advertising space. So they have sucked a profitable business into a non-profit business.

But prima+ is certainly not in the black either…

We are trying to balance the shift now so that we don’t reduce too much of the audience base of classical television. Plus, we want to have an advertising layer in there. Subscription is a sophisticated thing: the more similar services there are, including international ones, the less loyal viewers become, jumping from one platform to another, easily every month. You are putting money into new and new content all the time, but you can’t stop. Once you stop, viewers go elsewhere.

How will prima+ do it?

We will add gradually to see when it stops making sense. It seems like a better strategy to us.

Source: archiv.hn.cz