Television: inflating prices, decreasing share

Even though the television segment profited from the lockdowns – thanks to being considered a trustworthy source of news –, the trend of TV slowly losing to online still persists. Although regional advertising spending on TV amounted to 3.24 billion Euros last year – thanks to the above-mentioned 11% YoY growth rate –, it still was not enough for TV to keep its share. Presently accounting for only one-third of the overall spending, television also lost some points from its average share, stopping at 41% in 2021. However, we should note that in most countries of the region it is still strong: while the share of digital grew almost by 20% during the last eight years, television’s position has barely weakened. 

The regional TV-ranking did not change significantly, either: countries in the Balkans are still in the lead concerning advertising on television. 

As for the media usage habits, ATV slightly decreased last year, but not to a pervasive level in the region: 5 countries out of 14 – namely Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina – even recorded some noticeable increase in the average TV-viewing time.

Some countries reported a visible inflation in the TV-segment in 2021, after TV-channels run out of free capacity. In the Czech Republic, for example, media sales houses were struggling with the lack of advertising space so much they could not get all campaigns on air. Similarly, Slovenian national television, RTV, had no free capacity in airtime, so for the first time, one Slovenian TV sales house suspended new orders, resulting in price-increase and additional inflation.

There is no surprise regarding VOD-platforms. They are further increasing their subscription numbers, and more and more global platforms are entering new markets in Central and Eastern Europe. However, some countries boast local streaming platforms as quite successful competitors, such as Voyo in Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia and the Czech Republic, or Megogo in Ukraine. Netflix is planning to introduce a cheaper, ad-supported “tier” to get ahead of competition.