The media market in 2022, Slovakia

The year 2022 ushered in significant changes across various segments of the Slovak media market.* In the realm of news television, new channels such as RTVS:24 and JOJ 24 emerged, while TA3 was licensed for a new channel, TA3 Doku, which was yet to be launched. Markíza Group maintained its position as the leader in the Slovak TV market in terms of delivered ad ratings. Key advertisers leverage both commercial TV groups with pharma sector oscillating towards Markíza Group and e-commerce towards JOJ group. 

In the streaming services domain, the market welcomed new players like Disney+, Joj Play, and HBO Max. SkyShowtime was also slated for a launch in the first half of 2023. As a result, video streaming services experienced a surge in penetration, reaching a total of 46%. Netflix continued to be the dominant video subscription service, but Voyo, Disney+, and JOJ Play exhibited rapid growth.

The radio market experienced transformations as well. Bauer Media Audio Slovakia introduced its fourth Rádio Rock station, while Radio Jemné, acquired by the Bauer group the previous year, rebranded as Radio Melody. Additionally, Dobre radio expanded its coverage to multiregional areas. The radio sector faced an 11% slight decrease in net media value. One part of the puzzle is the media inflation, but it is also influenced by the fact that radio stations increasingly branch out into various activities beyond offline broadcasting, including robust social media activities (many major broadcaster such as Expres and Europa 2 have very solid fan base on Facebook or Instagram) and cross-media projects.

Print media have been losing ground since 2012 due to advertisers shifting their investment from offline dailies and magazines to more instant and visit driven online portals and social media platforms. Printed version give credibility to the online websites of print titles, which are very popular and belong to TOP 10 websites in Slovakia. However, 2021 and 2022 have experienced a 14% CAGR, which may indicate that print has bottomed out in 2020.

Digital investments, which surged by nearly 31% in 2021, stabilized with a 2% growth in 2022, with mobile devices accounting for 54% of total digital advertising expenses, and 80% of display and video formats bought programmatically. Ringier stood out as the leading digital platform operator, owning aktuality.sk with the highest traffic among Slovak platforms. In 2022, Ringier launched koktejl.sk, a more tabloid and lifestyle-oriented platform. The second-largest provider, Zoznam, faced competition from the News and Media Holding, which experienced rapid growth.

In the e-commerce domain, 2022 saw a decline in total turnover and the number of Slovak e-shops by, respectively, 13% and 3% Y-o-Y. This is following a robust growth in 2020 and 2021, which might be attributed to natural post-Covid 19 elimination. The strongest e-commerce player in terms of reach were Heureka, Bazoš and Aliexpress.