Sam Barnett will replace Didier Stoessel, who remains PPF’s chief investment officer, as head of CME’s media group.
With effect from 1 May 2025, Central European Media Enterprises (CME), which includes TV Nova, has appointed Sam Barnett, a media executive with international experience in television and streaming, as CEO.
In his new role, Sam Barnett will replace Didier Stoessel, who will remain as Chief Investment Officer of PPF, which includes overseeing the group’s media investments. Didier Stoessel has held combined positions at PPF and CME since 2022.
“We are confident that his global management experience and expertise make him the best possible person to successfully steer CME Group into the years ahead,” said Didier Stoessel, Chief Investment Officer of PPF and current CEO of CME, responsible for the Czech and Romanian markets.
Since its takeover by PPF Group four years ago, CME has undergone a transformation from a linearly focused broadcaster to a digital media group. The streaming service Voyo has become the centre of its activities, growing from 30,000 subscribers to 950,000.
CME operates TV stations in six markets in Central and Eastern Europe, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Moldova, Slovakia and Slovenia. CME broadcasts on 46 TV channels, reaches 49 million viewers and operates the growing streaming service Voyo and the new platform Oneplay.
The positions of the strongest TV groups remained unchanged in March compared to the previous months of this year.
Czech Television stations also achieved the highest TV market share in the universal audience group over 15 years old in March. Their cumulative share in all-day broadcasting was 29.22%, 0.3 percentage points higher than in March last year. This is according to official measurement data from ATO-Nielsen.
The situation is further balanced in this audience group within the all-day broadcast. This is followed by the Nova and Prima groups (27.55% and 27.36% respectively).
In the primary time 15+ as well as in all other monitored audience groups 15-54 and 18-69, the Nova group confirmed the highest shares in both daytime and evening broadcasts. Its year-on-year growth in March is also the highest in the TV market.
Growth also continues for Television Seznam, which in March managed to overtake the Barrandov group stations even in the wider 15+ target group (the first time this has happened so far only in December 2024, a strong period for Television Seznam). In the 18-69 group, which is key for Seznam, Television Seznam already had a higher share in some months of this year and the previous year. At the same time, Television Seznam’s increased share is also helped by the representation of Atmedia.
TV Group Share (%), March 2025
TV Nova is the channel of the month
Of the individual stations, TV Nova was the main channel with the highest year-on-year share increase this March (+0.8pp, valid for CS 15+). Also doing well were the news channel CT24 (+0.7 ppts. to 4.63%), Prima Krimi (+0.5 ppts. to 4.71%) and CNN Prima News (+0.4 ppts. to 2.44%).
The most watched programmes in March were Television News (Nova), Specialisté (Nova) and Případy 1. oddělení (CT1).
The joint media industry position paper outlines practical recommendations for implementing the European Media Freedom Act’s principles on audience measurement. Together, ACT, EBU and egta strongly encourage the Commission to develop detailed guidelines clarifying how these provisions should be applied consistently across Europe.
The Ulož.to portal was once a huge repository of any kind of content.It offered the latest movies and TV series for download, but also music, literature and video games.But in December 2023, Ulož.to ceased its original activity and transformed into a cloud storage site where files cannot be searched.This ended a great era of internet piracy in the Czech Republic.However, neither the end of the popular portal nor the advent of streaming services completely eradicated the illegal distribution of content.Creators must continue to protect their copyrights.How?That’s what attorney Klára Hrabáková answered in an interview with CNN Prima NEWS.
Not so long ago, internet piracy was rampant. Downloading a video game, music, movie or TV series using torrents or portals like Ulož.to was the order of the day. But in recent years, piracy seems to have disappeared.
The end of Upload.to, which turned off public searches between stored files, contributed to its decline. It later morphed into a classic cloud storage for private data sharing. Another important role was played by the emergence of streaming platforms such as Spotify, Netflix, Max, Disney+ and others.
Thousands of movies and series or songs by musical artists are available through them. For just a few hundred crowns, users can set up a subscription and happily consume entertainment. Yet even today, copyright is still something to keep in mind.
According to Hrabáková, pirate platforms make money from the distribution of content, but their money is irretrievably drained away and not invested in further film or television production. “It is important to remember that piracy does not serve to distribute culture to the masses, but instead less culture is created,” Hrabáková says.
“Copyright also protects the jobs of all the people involved in the creation of series. Whether they are actors, writers, technicians or people who subsequently produce the series. It’s a whole range of professions and copyright protects their livelihoods as well,”
explains why it is necessary to protect content creators.
How can creators defend themselves against pirates? That’s not the only question attorney Klara Hrabakova answers in an interview with CNN Prima NEWS. In the following minutes, she explains why authors should enforce their rights to protect their content, how piracy affects creators, and whether classic television will survive in the coming years or whether it will fall into oblivion due to streaming platforms.
Watch the full interview with Klára Hrabáková, attorney at law and member of the board of ALAI Czech Republic, here.
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has successfully shut down video hosting site Gamovideo in Spain.
Gamovideo operated as a video host, allowing users to upload, store, and share illegal content. Primarily serving as a video hosting platform for pirate streaming websites, Gamovideo facilitated illegal distribution and streaming. The platform paid uploaders based on downloads and views, further incentivizing the unauthorized distribution of popular content.
Platforms such as Gamovideo act as the backbone of the piracy ecosystem, providing storage and streaming for illegal copies while forming key partnerships with pirate linking sites and incentivizing uploaders. Hosting services like Gamovideo directly pay these uploaders based on downloads and views, fueling the supply of unauthorized content.
The platform ran 125 back-end subdomains supporting its operation and attracted more than 3 million monthly users worldwide in 2024. Multiple streaming linking sites relied on the service.
Following an investigation, ACE recently approached the Barcelona-based operator, resulting in a shutdown of the service, including the transfer of pirate domains to ACE and other substantial commitments.
“Thanks ACE’s unmatched technical capabilities and expansive global network, a notorious player in the Spanish-language video hosting ecosystem can no longer harm the creative economy,”
said Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer for the Motion Picture Association (MPA). “We look forward to continuing our joint fight to protect intellectual property and bring criminal operators to justice.”
All Gamovideo domains have been transferred to ACE and are now redirected to ACE’s Watch Legally site.
The operator of a platform responsible for supplying illegal streams to pirate services around the world, has been convicted and sentenced to 11 months in prison and ordered to pay more than US$90,000 in penalties and damages.
The ruling in a Lebanese court followed a joint criminal complaint by the Premier League, Sky and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).
The defendant was found guilty of five criminal charges including various intellectual property and cybercrime-related offences.
Kevin Plumb, Premier League General Counsel, said: “The case further demonstrates the Premier League’s commitment to protecting its intellectual property around the world. This is not only important to us and our broadcast partners, but it is essential for the future health of English football and the protection of our fans.”
Matt Hibbert, Group Director of Anti-Piracy at Sky said the partnership with the Premier League, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment and international law enforcement was vital in fighting piracy.
“The Lebanese judicial authorities in Lebanon, in collaboration with the Lebanese Cyber Crime Bureau successfully pursued the prosecution of this individual, who has been involved in the egregious theft of content for many years. We will continue to take steps to shut down organised criminal networks who are intent on stealing our content and whose activities expose consumers to real risks of malware, identity theft and data loss.”
The ruling also ordered that the websites seized be shut down, the defendant’s devices be cleared of all data, and the deletion of all accounts used for client and customer communication.
The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) has entered into a new settlement agreement with the services Přehraj.to and Datoid. The operators of these services have agreed to work with ACPV members to prevent the illegal sharing of protected works.
The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) has reached an agreement with the operators of Přehraj.to and Datoid to protect the copyrights of its members, TV Nova and FTV Prima. The operators have agreed to take technical measures against illegal sharing of copyrighted works. The agreement also includes payment of legal costs.
AKTV is working with the operators on effective content filtering. The operators will maintain an up-to-date list of protected works and improve filtering mechanisms. This cooperation is part of AKTV’s strategy to minimise illegal sharing of programmes.
Klára Brachtlová, President of AKTV, welcomed the agreement as another success in the fight against piracy. AKTV has long focused on legal protection of copyright and awareness-raising activities. It operates an information website on copyright, where interested parties can find explanations of terms and answers to frequently asked questions.
AKTV also publishes articles on new studies on copyright infringement in the European Union. The agreement with Přehraj.to and Datoid is another step towards minimising illegal content sharing. AKTV strives to inform the public about the negative impact of piracy on the cultural and creative industries. The service providers will actively cooperate to update the lists of protected works.
In the last few days and weeks, the most successful series were those that viewers already know well. On the other hand, the weekend viewership of the Český lev fell slightly.
At the end of February, the second season of the popular crime series Hrdina arrived on the streaming platform prima+. The now common practice meant the premiere on TV screens a few days later, but this tactic works relatively well for Prima.
Although the viewership of the first episode of the second series (just under 600 thousand viewers) dropped slightly compared to the average for the first series (700 thousand viewers), the series still attracted considerable interest among TV Prima’s male and female viewers and continues to hold its own with the rest of the TV audience.
The second series even rose slightly in the ratings compared to the first one. While the first series of the unpretentious crime series has only 48 percent on CSFD, the second one is currently shining at 54 percent after two episodes. The series has also changed directors. Instead of Jan Haluza (Co ste hasiči, Deníček moderního fotra), Jaroslav Fuit (Jedna rodina, Jedině Tereza) is behind the camera this time. Let’s see if the next episodes will increase in terms of ratings and quality, or if the interest will gradually fade away.
Source: TV Nova
TV Nova has seen even better results with its series Specialisté and Případy mimořádné Marty. Marta with Tatiana Dykova manages to stay just above the 900,000 viewers mark, which is obviously a good result for the creators and TV. Against the series Případy mimořádné Marty stands the rerun of Filip Renč’s crime drama Hlava medúzy, which aroused a lot of interest when it premiered a few years ago and which has apparently not diminished even after all these years. There were 877,000 viewers. So far, Nova is leading.
Specialisté, another of the big spring comebacks, is doing even better. The eleventh season of TV Nova’s popular Czech crime series is not enjoying a very positive rating (it has 36 percent on CSFD), but the viewership is still enormous. The new case of the popular group of investigators attracted 1.06 million viewers to the screens last week, making it one of the most watched shows of the whole week.
Oh, and let’s throw in an interesting fact about the Český lev. As expected, the majority of the awards were shared by Vlny and Metoda Markovič: Hojer, but even such popular Czech works did not help to push the ratings to a new record. On the contrary, compared to last year (almost 700,000 viewers), this year’s broadcast enjoyed only 647,000 viewers.
While this is still within the norm for the last few years, the question is whether this Czech counterweight to the Oscars should generate slightly higher numbers. Perhaps it can only be a consolation that this year’s show is rated 62 percent on CSFD, while last year viewers and viewers gave the Lions a mere 51 percent.
The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has filed two separate federal lawsuits against individuals in California and Pennsylvania, each accused of operating illegal internet protocol television (IPTV) services.
The first lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, targets Zachary DeBarr of Murrieta, California, the alleged operator of Outer Limits IPTV. The second lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, is against Brandon Weibley of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who is alleged to have operated multiple illegal IPTV services, including Beast Mode Live, GreenWing Media, Viking Media, BTV, Shrugs, and Zing.
The two unrelated lawsuits allege that DeBarr and Weibley’s services facilitate mass copyright infringement by offering unauthorized access to thousands of pirated television channels, movies, and television shows.
“These lawsuits demonstrate ACE’s unwavering commitment to protecting the creative industry from digital piracy from coast to coast and around the world,”
said Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for the Motion Picture Association.
“Illegal IPTV services not only harm creators and legitimate streaming platforms but also expose consumers to potential security and fraud risks. We will continue to take decisive legal action to shut down these operations and hold infringers accountable.”
A second report published today by Grant Thornton, carried out in partnership with the Live Content Coalition, demonstrates the very limited impact of the European Commission’s Recommendation of 4 May 2023 on combating online piracy of sports and other live events. It clearly indicates that the situation continues to deteriorate for live events organisers, broadcasters and workers alike.
The analysis, presented on 4 March in Brussels, covers the full year’s data for 2024 and includes a comparison with Grant Thornton’s previous analysis covering only the first half of 2024. The key findings of this second analysis:
10.8 million takedown notices relating to unauthorised retransmission of live events were submitted to intermediaries.
Over 81% of these notices did not result in suspension of the illegal retransmission.
Only 2.7% of infringements were acted upon within 30 minutes and 20% took over 120 minutes for action.
Dedicated Server Providers[1] received more notices requesting the suspension of retransmissions than Online Platforms and other hosting providers combined, accounting for 52% of all notices submitted across 2024. 89% of these notices did not lead to suspension of the illegal retransmission.
Regarding cooperation agreements, the analysis shows that of the notices submitted based on such agreements 86% were directed to online platforms. These have an 84% effectiveness in achieving suspension. Of the notices submitted to Dedicated Server Providers, only 1% were submitted in line with a cooperation agreement. While cooperation agreements can help improve the likelihood of suspensions when correctly implemented, for Dedicated Server Providers complementary measures are needed.
Grant Thornton will continue to monitor the impact of the European Commission’s Recommendation on piracy of live events. The third edition of the analysis will be released in Q3 2025 reporting on key trends during the year and will offer a comprehensive view of progress through year on-year analysis.
Reaction from Live Content Coalition Members
“The latest Grant Thornton report shows that piracy of live content is continuing at pace in Europe in spite of the Recommendation. European broadcasters, sports leagues and other players in the live events environment work tirelessly to protect content from theft. Current measures are clearly not working, whilst technological advances are making piracy easier and more lucrative than ever for criminals. We once again call on the Commission to urgently bring forward legislation requiring the intermediaries, protected by safe harbour provisions, to remove infringing content within the live window, when notified. Organised crime remains the sole beneficiary of this legislative inaction, and it is imperative that we protect the survival of the live events sector in Europe.” – Mark Lichtenhein, Chair of the Sports Rights Owners Coalition,and Grégoire Polad, Director General, Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe.
About the Live Content Coalition
The Live Content Coalition is a group of representatives of leading European live content producers, broadcasters, and exhibitors. As representatives of live events, including sports, music concerts and festivals, broadcast television and video on demand services, and tickets sellers, we are all united in the fight to stop piracy.
[1] Dedicated Server Providers are defined in Grant Thornton’s analysis as companies or organisations that offer dedicated server hosting services, including server hardware, network infrastructure, and management for hosting websites, applications, and data.
In a major crackdown on digital piracy, German authorities have arrested three individuals suspected of running a large-scale illegal streaming operation.
The network, which allegedly distributed a major pay-TV operator’s content to over 30,000 users worldwide, caused multi-million-euro damages, according to the Bavarian Central Office for Cybercrime. The operation, carried out on 18 February 2025, followed nearly two years of intensive investigations by the Cybercrime Division of the Hof Criminal Police and the Bavarian Central Office for Cybercrime. The probe began in June 2023 after the affected pay-TV operator filed a complaint.
The prime suspect, a 36-year-old man from the Wunsiedel district, is believed to have managed the illegal distribution with the help of accomplices. To dismantle the network, police formed a special task force named “Panel,” leading to extensive coordinated raids across 17 locations. Over 150 law enforcement officers from Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, and Saarland took part in the operation.
The authorities seized around €16,000 in cash, €35,000 in cryptocurrencies, and over 200 digital devices. They also deactivated multiple servers used to operate the illegal streaming services.
The three main suspects were arrested and remain in custody following warrants issued by the Bamberg District Court. They face charges including commercial computer fraud, which carries potential prison sentences ranging from six months to ten years. Additional suspects are under investigation for either reselling or personally utilising the illegal streaming services.
Nordic broadcasters Discovery, TV4, and Viaplay have begun legal action against several operators as part of a crackdown on illegal operators.
The three companies have filed a claim with the Stockholm District Court, Patent and Market Court that says the operators are enabling unlicensed service to gain access to their copyrighted content.
One lawsuit said subscribers to the internet service providers have been able to connect to domains run by Nordic One/N1 via their internet connections, gaining them access to the illegal restransmission.
According to the Stockholm-based consultancy Mediaviion said Nordic One/N1 was described as one of the largest criminal entities in Sweden and the Nordic region in relation to illegal IPTV. The service hijacks television broadcasts from TV companies and distributors, then rebroadcasts them to the public for a fee via its own servers – without the consent of the rights holders.
“In light of this, it can be concluded that the internet providers have contributed to Nordic One/N1’s infringement of the rights holders’ respective signal rights,” the lawsuit states.
Discovery, TV4, and Viaplay are seeking a court order to prohibit internet service providers from facilitating the illegal use of their content. In other words, operators should be required to pay a specified sum if they violate the ban. The TV companies argue that the operators are partly responsible, meaning they are facilitating copyright infringement by failing to take action.
The case has echoes of the action taken by LaLiga against Cloudflare.
Mediavision says a growing number of Swedish households are now subscribing to the illegal services. Its data shows that at the end of 2024, over 700,000 households in Sweden were paying for such services – a new record and a significant increase compared to spring 2024.
