The television segment in the CEE, 2022

After the market has generally gotten back to pre-COVID levels, the television segment was shaken by the waves of the Ukrainian-Russian war.

Advertising spendings in TV slightly grew (17,8 million euro) compared to 2022 amounting to 3.26 billion eur, but on average its share stayed the same, taking up 41% of the advertising spending. Inflation heavily affected this segment, so this stagnating position was achieved with increasing prices. ATV throughout the region generally decreased compared to the previous year, in case of the Baltic states, Poland, Serbia and Bulgaria even hitting a lower number than in 2019, which the result of completely wearing down the lockdown-boom, and also mostly younger generations opting for VOD services instead of linear television. 2022 was a Football World Cup year, mainly activating the Balkan countries, but not even this sporting event could boost the viewing time visibly. The invasion of Ukraine led to banning Russian speaking or Russian produced TV channels in the Baltics, as a result BMA group (RenTV, NTV, 1) was shut down in all three Baltic states, and Amber Group (TNT channels) was closed in Lithuania. The lack of airtime stopped advertisers to spend their assigned budget in TV, so they funnelled this money to other channels, which got an unexpected boost. The war also brought about general inflation, and with rising living costs and labour costs, TV channels also increased their prices. The prominence of VOD platforms only grows with time, besides major global players like HBO Max, Netflix, SkyShowtime and Disney+ entering markets, in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia, or already dominating them, weCAN experts report regional platforms such as Voyo, or local ones, as České kino (CZ) are also growing in popularity. This highlights a more unique feature of the CEE markets: local content is very important (movies, series, talent shows, realities) on linear television and streaming platforms too.