Lenka Hrivnáková, Author at The Association of Commercial Television

WARC PREDICTS AN ADVERTISING INVESTMENT SLOWDOWN IN 2023

Brands will continue to invest in advertising in the second half of the year, but warc expects a slowdown in 2023.

Ad spend around the globe will rise 8.3% in 2022, before slowing significantly in 2023 – in a major new report, WARC downgrades expectations for global ad market growth by $90bn in the face of a wider economic slowdown. These are the figures presented in WARC’s Ad spend Outlook 2022/23: Impacts of The Economic Slowdown. You can read a sample here. WARC Media subscribers can access the full report here.

The report notes following facts:

Global ad spend is set to reach $880.9bn this year – a rise of 8.3% or $67.3bn. This is largely down to cyclical boosts from major events like the US midterm elections and the men’s FIFA World Cup, both taking place in November, which will animate H2 growth. Big brands appear to plan to sustain their spend.

However, growth is set to slow significantly to just 2.6% in 2023. WARC is thus cutting its original 2023 outlook from last December by 5.7 percentage points. A significant reduction in investment is also estimated for social media. Investment in social media advertising is set to grow by 11.5% this year, but this is well below the 2021 figure (+47.1%). In 2023, it is set to grow by just 5.2%, the lowest ever for this category. Apple’s privacy measures are also expected to play a role. This also applies to YouTube, where advertising investment is expected to increase by 5.6% in 2023.

Investment on ad-supported video platforms (AVOD) is expected to increase slightly faster. Broadcasters are also expected to see an increase in advertising revenues this year (+9.7%) and 5.2% next year. Higher revenues are also expected for linear TV this year (+3.6%), but a decline of 4.5% is forecast for next year.

“With the rate of growth in global output now halved and supply-side pressures fuelling inflation, the economic slowdown has slashed nearly $90 billion from the global advertising market’s growth prospects this year and next,” notes James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence & Forecasting, WARC. But he adds that brands are still investing for now as the post-Covid recovery continues.

Source: mediaguru.cz

NEW CONTENT ON TV NOVA WILL BUILD UP IN 2023

The advertising autumn on TV Nova has been promising so far. The investments the TV group has made in the preparation of the programme should bear fruit not only this autumn, but especially next year, says Jan Vlček, CEO of TV Nova.

Last week, the Nova Television Group presented its autumn scheme, from which it hopes to increase its viewership. It has even greater expectations for 2023, when it will introduce a number of new shows, which are now in production, to its linear broadcasting and to the paid offer of the Voyo video platform. Specifically, dozens of original feature projects, including TV Nova’s first ever period drama with the working title Obchodní dům, the return of Kriminálka Anděl, and the family series Jedna rodina from the pen of Lucie Konečná. CEO Jan Vlček, one of two CEOs of the Nova Group who is also its Chief Commercial Officer, therefore expects 2023 to push the group further in terms of ratings.

He also has optimistic news in his interim outlook for this autumn. In terms of advertiser activity, Nova does not observe that clients are putting the brakes on their plans for TV advertising campaigns under the influence of economic developments. “Most clients are closing larger volumes than last year,” he describes in an interview after the press conference on the autumn scheme.

With the start of the TV autumn just around the corner, it is impossible not to ask how you perceive the advertising market situation and how clients’ interest in advertising in the autumn months is developing. Do you see a caution in the outlook for advertising clients in the wake of economic developments?

We are watching very carefully for any signs of potential caution and in our discussions with clients we are interested in how their business is developing and whether they are planning any adjustments in their communications. So far, however, we are finding that the trend is rather the opposite and most clients are closing larger volumes than last year. So we do not observe any slowdown. It’s not that we don’t see caution as clients are making it clear that they are preparing for various eventualities so that they are ready if their demand is negatively impacted. But so far they have not felt the impact on their business and so far the current economic situation has not had a negative effect on the size of communication budgets, quite the opposite.

Do you have any justification for this?

I think a lot of clients have learnt their lessons during the time of covid. They have got used to living with a certain degree of uncertainty and are able to prepare alternative scenarios and switch to them when they see fit. Thus they do not create for themselves a panic of uncertainty.

ASMEA, the professional grouping of media agencies, estimates that the rate of TV inflation will be between 10-15% this year. Do you have any idea how Nova Group’s TV advertising prices may change for 2023?

We don’t have anything approved yet, but we can all see how prices are evolving. The impact that inflation has on our inputs must be reflected in the price level for next year. We will also see how the demand for TV advertising develops for next year. Of course, if it were higher, it would push the price further up.

“So far, the current economic situation has not had a negative effect on the size of communication budgets, quite the opposite.”

If we go back to the same period a year ago, at the press conference for last autumn you announced your plan to launch a female channel Nova Lady. Did it fulfil what you expected from it in your portfolio of stations?

With the launch of Nova Lady, we achieved the stratification of our channels that we needed from a socio-demographic perspective. Now we are still working on its stronger distribution. But the new channel is so far meeting expectations given the level of current distribution. Alongside the launch of Nova Lady, we have also redesigned the Nova Action and Nova Fun channels. We are also working on Nova Gold. We are continuing to work on these four channels so that they are more complementary and overlap as little as possible. Nova Lady is intended primarily as a channel for working-age women, Nova Fun as a channel for a younger female audience, Nova Action is aimed at men and Nova Gold primarily at middle-aged women.

What exactly do you want to improve about the distribution of Nova Lady?

We want Nova Lady to be distributed like our other free-to-air channels. So we are in talks with operators to include the channel in their offer.

And are you planning to launch another new thematic channel?

We are not working on another free-to-air channel project at the moment.

Do you see the Voyo paid streaming service and its tie-up with linear channels as strategically important now?

Our primary intention is to capitalise on the large amount of content we are producing and developing in the coming year. We’ve currently unveiled our autumn line-up and also announced a number of shows we’re preparing for 2023. It’s in the next year that the major influx of new content will come. That’s a key priority. This autumn will be a strong one, we expect to see an increase in viewership, and we want to move even higher in viewership in 2023.

“This autumn will be a strong one, we expect to see an increase in viewership, and we want to move even higher in viewership in 2023.”

Won’t both platforms be “eating” each others’ viewers?

We clearly see that Voyo and linear TV are not competing, but complementing each other. We see linear TV acting as a driver of new subscribers for Voyo. These are shows that viewers watch on TV and like so much that they want to see them in their own mode. Or, conversely, linear TV acts as a way of promoting formats that can only be watched on Voyo.

The question is whether you will incorporate the shows you plan for Voyo into linear broadcasting…

Our idea is that projects that are exclusive to Voyo will stay on Voyo. We don’t rule out that they won’t be on linear TV in a few years, but we don’t foresee them being on linear TV after, say, one year.

You’ve indicated several times that Voyo has more subscribers than you’ve projected for this time period. What is the current state of play?

We recently disclosed that Voyo has more than 350,000 subscribers. The number is gradually increasing, plus now the autumn season is starting, which is an incentive for new subscribers. We estimate that Voyo is now the number two in the market after Netflix, although we don’t know the exact numbers on Netflix and are basing them on our calculations. Local content is key, and it’s hard for any foreign player to compete with us there.

“We estimate that Voyo is now number two in the market after Netflix.”

And in terms of investment? Is the money invested in building the Voyo platform coming back?

We have set a five-year plan that is calculated to be profitable when we reach one million subscribers. I believe that target is realistic. If we look at the penetration of paid streaming video services (SVOD, ed.) in the Czech market, we are at around 25%. In the West, however, the level of this penetration is at least double, so there is still room for growth in our SVOD market.

Is it still true that the biggest draw on Voyo is Ordinace v růžové zahradě?

I think that’s an oversimplification. You can hardly compare a series that runs for a long time with a series of three or four episodes. Obviously, Ordinace v růžové zahradě delivers very valuable content with a loyal audience, continuously forming the backbone of a stable subscriber base. However, building Voyo on Ordinace v růžové zahradě alone would not work. In fact, viewers gradually get used to the exclusive material Voyo offers, which then becomes an attraction for other new subscribers.

So, are you thinking of returning Ordinace v růžové zahradě to linear broadcasting?

No, that’s not on the cards.

In terms of selling advertising and adding target audiences on the internet and in linear TV, we are faced with the fact that we still don’t have a single currency for measuring video content…

As for Voyo, we don’t want to sell advertising there. In the case of ad-supported video, i.e. AVOD, which is represented in our offer by Nova.cz, there are projects in the works within the ATO that would be able to measure the total reach of video. However, we are already trading incremental reach with clients that can attribute video views to a TV campaign.

Looking at the Nova Group as a whole over a number of years, how much of the turnover can SVOD, represented by the Voyo service, bring to the Group?

It is difficult to express a percentage share because we do not know how revenues from other sources will develop. But SVOD should be one of the pillars on which we want to stand in the future. It certainly won’t be key in the foreseeable future, as advertising revenue will still be the foundation. However, alongside advertising and SVOD, distribution revenues are also developing interestingly and it is our task to diversify our revenue sources in the future.

Source: mediaguru.cz

ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING OF COPYRIGHT WORKS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CRIMINAL LAW

Probably every internet user has downloaded a movie, song or photo for their personal use. The more proficient ones may have even downloaded a computer programme (e.g. a computer game). Of course, there are files that are not subject to copyright, but we usually face a problem that a given file is a work within the meaning of Section 2 of Act No. 121/2000 Coll., the Copyright Act (hereinafter referred to as the “Copyright Act”). Does a user who downloads a copyright work from an illegal source commit an illegal act and, if so, can illegal downloading be punishable under criminal law?

Nowadays, there are many paid legal online platforms with access to copyright works (especially movies and TV series) such as Netflix, HBO GO, Disney+, etc. Another way to access computer files is via data storage services such as Ulož.to. Works available in such repositories are often of obscure origin and apparently lacking a license to download them but are available for free. Finally, there are sites where the uploaded copyright content is clearly illegal, in particular domains allowing torrent downloads and operating on a peer-to-peer basis (i.e. data flows directly from individual users to other users). The police are actively trying to eliminate these platforms but their work is complicated by the fact that these sites are often global and their originators are not easy to trace.

The question of whether downloading copyright content for personal use is permissible has been addressed by the Supreme Court in the past. The Court has held that the making of a copy of a copyright work solely for personal use within the meaning of Section 30 (1) and (2) of the Copyright Act does not constitute an unauthorised interference with copyright and related rights. At the same time, the Supreme Court has held that the Copyright Act does not preclude the legal making of multiple copies for personal use, provided that this does not interfere with the normal use of the work and does not prejudice the legitimate interests of the author. In the opinion of the Supreme Court, it is irrelevant from which source the copy is made for personal use, i.e. it may be obtained illegally (e.g. by downloading the copyright work from the internet). However, it must not be a copy of a computer programme, since the making of a copy of such copyright work is excluded by the Copyright Act in Section 66.[1]

No wonder that the general public still believes that there is nothing wrong with downloading from the internet for personal use when the Supreme Court has taken the same view. But the aforementioned case law has now been overtaken by the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “Court of Justice”). The Court of Justice expressed the view that the illegal making of copies, albeit for personal use only, could not be subsumed into the exception allowing it. The Court of Justice justified its conclusion by stating that a restrictive interpretation must be applied in creating exceptions to copyright since the copyright which is being interfered with in this extraordinary manner permitted by law is a right of an absolute nature. The Court of Justice further pointed out that in the event of illegal downloading of a copyright work, the author cannot obtain adequate compensation, and therefore downloading from illegal sources, even for personal use, must be discouraged.[2]

The Court of Justice emphasised the necessity of applying the so-called Berne three-step test, which can be considered a material condition for the non-contractual use of a work that must be fulfilled in addition to the individual statutory licences stipulated by law (formal condition). The three conditions that must be fulfilled for the admissibility of an exception to copyright in favour of the making of copies of a copyright work for personal use are as follows:

1) It is a special case provided for in the law.
2) The use of the work must not conflict with the normal use of the work.
3) The legitimate interests of the author must not be unreasonably prejudiced.

The Court of Justice held that even if the first two conditions of the test are met, downloading copies from illegal sources can never satisfy the third condition of the test, since authors do not receive compensation when works are downloaded from illegal sources and this ipso facto excessively affects the legitimate interests of the author. In view of the above, it can be concluded that downloading copyright content from illegal sources is unlawful.

But can such conduct be punished under criminal law?

The case law focuses exclusively on communication of the work to the public (uploading works to the internet without the author’s permission) and not on downloading. This stems primarily from the lower social harmfulness of downloading. It is treated more benevolently by the law enforcement authorities in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity of criminal repression as the act does not reach such social harmfulness that it could not be resolved within the limits of civil law or administrative law remedies.

Yet, illegal downloading could accomplish the facts of Section 270 of Act No. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code (hereinafter referred to as the “Criminal Code”). This provision reads as follows “Whoever unlawfully interferes not insignificantly with the legally protected rights to a copyright work, an artistic performance, an audio or audio-visual recording, a radio or television broadcast or a database shall be punished by imprisonment for up to two years, prohibition of activity or confiscation of property or other material value.”[3] For the sake of simplicity, I work only with the term copyright work in this article but my conclusions are fully applicable to other rights related to copyright within the meaning of Section 270 of the Criminal Code.

As I stated above, the condition of interference with protected rights in a copyright work will be met in the case of downloading and thus the interpretation of the phrase “not insignificantly” will be key. The interference must be not insubstantial in order to satisfy the facts of the crime. The commentary literature on the subject states that each case must be assessed individually, in particular taking into account the intensity of the interference with the legally protected rights, the manner in which the act was carried out, the consequences of the act in terms of the authors’ personal and property rights, and whether the interference was an isolated incident or whether it was of a long-lasting or repetitive nature. Last but not least, it will be necessary to assess the perpetrator as a person, the manner and degree of their culpability, their motivation and whether they have committed a similar act in the past.[4]

It should be noted that the condition of not insignificant interference will generally not be met in the case of downloading a work by the end user since the damage caused by downloading, for example, one film is only in the order of crowns. The Supreme Court has held that the calculation of damages must be based on the amount that the copyright holders would have received if they had legally made the downloaded content available in a comparable manner (e.g. through online video rental services in the case of films and series) and that the amount of lost profits cannot be calculated from the usual price of the tangible medium (e.g. DVD).[5]

At the same time, it is more profitable for copyright holders to claim compensation from the operators of web platforms or the persons who uploaded the work to the internet than from the users who downloaded the work. Individual users cause only minor damage by downloading the work and it would be economically disadvantageous and technically virtually impossible to claim damages from each of them. Moreover, on 7 June 2021, Directive 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union came into force [6], which, among other things, imposes new obligations on providers of online content-sharing services. The Directive imposes an obligation on service providers to make “best efforts” to prevent the dissemination of copyright-infringing content, which is the only way for them to exclude their liability.

However, as I outlined above, it can be problematic for ordinary users when a user downloads a torrent file. At the moment of downloading, the user is also sending the data to other users, thereby reproducing the work further.[7] Any user is thus a potential accomplice in the crime, not primarily because of the downloading of the work itself but because of the further sharing of the work. The joint conduct of multiple users may satisfy the “not insubstantial” copyright infringement requirement.[8]

What are the real penalties for illegal downloading of copyright content on the internet?

It can be concluded that downloading copyright works will only cause an insignificant infringement of copyright, i.e. if the user does not download torrent files and does not share them further, they do not have to worry about criminal sanctions. However, the conduct may qualify as an offence under the Copyright Act. Section 105a (1) (a) of the Copyright Act applies to the downloading of a copyright work, and under this provision a fine of up to CZK 150,000 can be imposed for unauthorised use of a copyright work. Theoretically, this includes any interference with an author’s work that does not reach the intensity of a “not insignificant” interference. Thus, on a purely formal level, the user commits an offence every time they download copyright content from an illegal source. However, on a practical level, the competent authorities do not pay attention to downloading content from the internet and I am not aware of a single case where a user has been fined or even prosecuted for downloading copyright content for their own use.

Mgr. Bc. Václav Pindur

Advokátní kancelář Brož & Sokol & Novák s.r.o.

Sokolská třída 60
120 00 Praha 2

Tel.: +420 224 941 946
e-mail: advokati@akbsn.eu

[1] Resolution of the Supreme Court of 25 March 2009, file no. 5 Tdo 234/2009
[2] Judgement of the Court of Justice (Fourth Chamber) of 10 April 2014, ACI Adam BV and Others v Stichting de Thuiskopie and Stichting Onderhandelingen Thuiskopie vergoeding, file no. C-435/12
[3] Provisions of Section 270 (1) of Act no. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code, as amended
[4] ŠČERBA, Filip. Section 270 [Infringement of copyright, copyright-related rights and database rights]. In: ŠČERBA, Filip a kol. Criminal Code. Commentary. Prague: C. H. Beck, 2020, p. 2152
[5] Resolution of the Supreme Court of 8 October 2014, file no.: 5 Tdo 171/2014
[6] Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC
[7] Provisions of Section 13 of Act no. 121/2000 Coll., the Copyright Act, as amended
[8] SKUPIN, Zdeněk Jiří. Reflection on the circumstances precluding illegality in criminal interference with copyright using P2P and in particular client-server networks, with an emphasis on legitimate self-defence and extreme necessity. Trestněprávní revue, 2019, no. 2, pp. 27-35

Source: epravo.cz

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PURPOSELY RUNNING AWAY FROM THE NEWS, BUT THEY’LL BE BACK IN THE FALL

More positive topics or tips on how to cope with the rising cost of living. That, too, is a recipe for responding to people’s frustration with the overabundance of negative events, according to TV Nova news director Kamil Houska.

Television news coverage in recent years has been marked primarily by events related to the coronavirus pandemic. This February, the war in Ukraine became the main topic. Both incidents have affected both the way television news is covered and the media behaviour of viewers. The steep interest in information has been replaced this spring by the strain of the overload of negative events, accompanied by a partial flight from television coverage. “On the other hand, there is a growing interest in news on the Internet and we see that TV and Internet news are sought out by different groups of viewers,” says Kamil Houska, director of TV Nova’s news department, who believes that viewers will return to TV news in the autumn. He sees the future of news in its availability on different platforms for different groups of viewers. “We are already fighting for young people to stay with us when they get older,” he says, pointing out that Nova’s TikTok account, which is aimed at the younger generation of “teenage” users, has been very successful.

TV news had very strong themes in the last two years, first it was covid, and since February this year it has been the Russian aggression in Ukraine. These are very serious topics that can be stressful for viewers. How has that affected interest in your news coverage?

We saw that the interest in information was high during the time of the covid pandemic. The fact that people were forced to spend time at home contributed to this, and as a result, TV ratings increased. This was the case for the whole market, not just our news segment. But now the situation is different. In the last two to three months there has been a decline in news viewership across the board. Leaving aside the fact that we are in the middle of summer, when TV ratings are always lower, the decline, according to our analysis, is linked to the fact that some people have deliberately crowded out news. We’ve talked to psychologists and sociologists about this, and they believe that after two years of people being stressed by covid and then the war in Ukraine, by the price hikes or energy security, they’ve tried to cope with the onslaught by running away from the news. For example, we’ve lost a few women in the newsroom and gained a few men. Sociologists believe that this is related to the fact that men in stressful situations tend to deal with further developments and the future, while women, at a certain stage when the stress is too much, feel more existential fears and try to push the negative things out. So now people are running away from the news because the news is negative and what is happening is negative.

Have you evaluated the need to respond to that kind of viewer behavior?

We have responded to it, of course, even though we cannot control the fact that negative things are happening that need to be reported. But we can influence the mix of news and what we emphasize. Rather than scaring people that price hikes are coming, we include stories where we try to give consumer advice and tips on how to deal with the situation. For example, we try to encourage people to save for top-ups so they are not caught out by high arrears in the autumn. We are also trying to look for more positive themes. The world is not black and white and it is not just full of bad things. We’re taking more notice of stories of interesting people and, for example, now in the summer we’re adding a travel window to every broadcast, tips for trips to give people a bit of a breather. We’re not going to change this era, but we’re seeing a lot of frustration in the community. That’s why we think people should get not only the necessary information about what’s going on tonight, but they deserve a picture of a more hopeful future for the world.

How have these two extraordinary events reflected in your work? What have you had to do differently or in a new way?

Every cloud has a silver lining. It taught us to react quickly, it exposed weaknesses we had that we were not prepared for in the long term. We lacked experience with a war situation this close to Europe. The trips of reporters with soldiers to Afghanistan or Iraq were different, because in Ukraine our reporters moved alone and without military help. We also lacked a number of things – for example, we did not have enough bulletproof vests, helmets, etc. We realised that we should introduce training for reporters in crisis areas, and we also saw how important psychological help was. We have learnt our lesson and as a result we are prepared for similar situations in the future.

I will come back to the fact that some viewers have started to avoid the news. What options do you have at that point? It’s hard to hide what’s going on…

We can’t really do that, but we have reduced the number of news pieces from Ukraine, for example. In the beginning we used to have ten to twelve of them, but now we have one to two most important news from Ukraine in one evening session. And there are days when we don’t cover Ukraine at all because there are no significant developments there. The interest of the audience is also not the same as in the beginning. It does not make as much sense to broadcast four or five reports every evening about shooting and bombing. People know that the war is on going, and if there are no tangible developments, I do not see the point. On the other hand, we are looking at Ukraine from other angles. We try to bring information about the integration of Ukrainians who have come to us, we bring news about how they are learning Czech or how their integration into the school system is being dealt with. We also try to help Ukrainians – for example, we still have a service for them in Ukrainian on TN.cz so that they can get all the information they need in their native language.

„Rather than scaring people that the price hikes are coming, we include reports where we try to give them consumer advice and tips on how to deal with the situation.“

Even before the war in Ukraine broke out, you were focused on sending your staff to Brussels. The war in Ukraine has probably overshadowed this, but how has the Brussels experience worked out for you?

The war in Ukraine has of course overshadowed everything, even covid seems to have ceased to exist. The whole world was interested in Ukraine. But we have had an excellent experience with the establishment of our headquarters in Brussels. At first we were a little worried about whether we would have enough topics. But the fears have not been confirmed and our staff is able to bring interesting topics from Brussels every day. We see this as a good step, because more and more important decisions are being made in Brussels. It has also helped us from the point of view of European politicians. By being accredited in Brussels, they see us as a relevant media outlet. It has opened the door to a number of interviews that we would not have been able to get before. Our aim is to report in an understandable way on what is happening in Brussels, and I believe we are succeeding.

Are you thinking of having a permanent Brussels correspondent?

We have never said for how long we are sending a staff to Brussels. We wanted to open up this reporting post. Coincidentally, it coincided with the Czech Presidency. But we didn’t say we were only going to Brussels for the duration of the Czech Presidency. That is not related to this. We now have a staff in Brussels and we are not thinking of abolishing it. It is not time-bound.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, you even had several reporters there. What is the situation today?

At one point we had up to three different crews in Ukraine, but now we have none. Around May, we decided that the war had reached a stage where we didn’t see any reason to keep the crews there.

How did you select the teams?

Each of our reporters could choose whether or not they wanted to go to the war zone. We didn’t force anyone, participation was purely voluntary. But I was pleasantly surprised by how many of them expressed interest in going to Ukraine. Perhaps seemingly surprisingly, women were among the first volunteers. It was essential for us as a TV organization to take good care of our people, whether it was with above-standard insurance, remuneration, or the facilities we had built for them. For someone with no experience, it was all done very professionally. And again, I must say that the way in which the crews of our television station and Czech Television treated each other was exemplary. I appreciated the fact that competitive rivalry goes aside in such situations and that we can help each other.

The things you had to do in connection with sending crews to Ukraine were – from what you have already indicated – quite complicated…

It was complicated and it was expensive. We needed to equip our people with filming equipment, bulletproof vests, helmets, we had to find large quantities of fuel in jerry cans, satellite phones or large cars in which you’d be able to sleep. Just to make the crews as self-sufficient as possible. It cost us several million crowns. We were also worried about what might happen, but now I have to say that I am not even aware that we had any problems – except for the time when our staff was detained by the army, but that was resolved, which is something that you cannot fully prepare for in advance.

Did you have to consult anyone about what things to provide for the staffs in Ukraine?

Partly. We have some experience because some of our reporters went to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I myself was in Bosnia as a young journalist. We had some idea of what needed to be provided and we also consulted military experts. But the rules that we set were also important. For example, the obligation to keep us informed of everything that was happening. Or knowing that you could come back home at any time and that there was no shame in that. Everyone knew that if they called me to say they wanted to come back, I respected that. Mental wellbeing is probably the most important thing to getting through this job.

Do you envisage sending crews to Ukraine again?

We are ready for that, but we are waiting for some impulse that will change the development fundamentally. It could be the end of the war and peace negotiations or a more massive offensive or possibly other changes in Ukrainian society. But at a time when much of the material is available through agencies, it makes no sense to keep crews in Ukraine. They would not have anything to produce. The stories and situations repeat themselves, and it makes no sense in the long run for commercial television to keep its crew on the ground for a long time in these circumstances. But if necessary, we are ready to go back within 24 hours.

Let us move on to other topics. Last year you started broadcasting from a new news studio. Are you happy with it?

We’re happy, we’ll tweak a few things, but it’s just small details. The news studio is working and now we are planning to invest in more studios. We also introduced a new sports studio before the summer and more will follow.

The studio for TN Live internet news was also newly established last year. In addition to the TV show, you are also expanding your internet news coverage. Do you plan to continue to do so?

I have long been an advocate that in a small country like the Czech Republic, building a purely news TV channel for commercial television is expensive and not effective. Its yield is, in my opinion, insufficient. That’s why we decided to go with the internet broadcast of TN Live. We are also linking it to a hybrid TV channel, from which you can click through to the live news feed. I think this is the future of news. It is more efficient and cheaper news, but at the same time it is produced in television quality and the viewer can watch it in situations where there is something to broadcast.

So you are still not considering a news TV channel?

We are not.

But does an internet news channel combined with a TV news channel have such an audience impact?

It’s not as if TN Live boosts TV viewership or vice versa. But it reaches a different group of people. When I talked about the fact that all TV stations saw a drop in evening news in May, on the other hand, we see that the traffic to our website TN.cz is increasing tremendously, and thus the viewership of the TN Live internet news. It’s different types of people that consume news. Our basic philosophy is to create news and deliver it in appropriate ways to different groups of viewers or readers. We put some on TV, some on the internet, some on social media. That’s the future. We just tailor the reporting we produce to where people receive it. That’s how we reach different audiences and increase the overall impact of the news.

But there’s no telling what the cumulative impact is…

It’s unfortunately difficult. A large number of viewers still watch TV, and with the internet, people change throughout the day and don’t watch news all day. Someone comes to the web 20 times a day and spends 10 minutes there. You can’t do a simple summation. But nowadays, it is not so important whether they see a story on TV, on the internet or on social media. Young people consume most news only on social media. If we are not on the networks, we will lose part of the audience because these people will not watch TV in the evening. Then there is a group of people who cannot function without television. There is another group that listens to the radio during the day, goes on the web and keeps up with the basic events of the day. Yet, in the evening they turn on the TV news because they are looking for a news summary of the day. Television news has the biggest impact on people despite the huge growth of the Internet.

Do you tailor the content and format of your coverage to the types of social media?

We tailor our posts to each social network. For example, we don’t expect the youngest generation of 15-year-olds to watch TV news in the evening. At the same time, we don’t want to lose the younger generation. That’s why we prepare news for them on TikTok, for example. When we started this, many people thought it was pointless. It’s not true. Yes, it’s a quick, short message, but we have hundreds of thousands of views on some of them. It’s not even true that young people aren’t interested in news. They’re just interested in something, maybe in a shorter, more entertaining way. Every social network is relevant for us to create news on. We’re successful with younger viewers on TikTok, and we believe that if we work with this generation, they’ll find us later in life – whether it’s online with TN Live or on TV with Television News. We are already fighting for the young to be with us when they are older.

„We’re successful with younger viewers on TikTok, and we believe that if we work with this generation, they’ll find us later in life – whether it’s online with TN Live or on TV with Television News.“

Are you preparing special broadcasts for the Senate and local elections?

We are preparing pre-election coverage for the Senate and local elections, but these are elections that are less central, so we will not focus on them as intensively as the parliamentary elections. The number one event for the second half of the year is the presidential elections, where we are preparing a number of surprises.

Finally, how do you estimate the development of audience interest in TV news in the second half of this year?

I believe that the decline in viewership that came in April and May this year is temporary. In June, the ratings started to improve, but then the holidays came. I think people will come back to TV news in the autumn.

Source: mediaguru.cz

„YOU CAN EITHER MAKE PEOPLE CRY AND LAUGH, OR YOU CAN’T SUCCEED IN THE TV BUSINESS,“ SAYS CME CHIEF DIDIER STOESSEL

CME Media Group CEO Didier Stoessel is one of the most influential figures in the domestic media business. The former investment banker with experience at HSBC and Merril Lynch is the top executive chosen by the PPF Group two years ago to bring the newly acquired CME Media Group back to the limelight. And Stoessel hasn’t held back at all – he has pulled creative producers and developers on his side („Having good content and a way to deliver it – that’s the name of the game these days“), hired triple the number of studios and is spending hundreds of millions on content production. On top of that, he has “revived” the then-stagnant Voyo, an online video library project, which he has made into one of the distinctive pillars of its strategy and which is now generating hundreds of millions in revenue a year. However, Stoessel still faces a number of challenges: competition in the market („Even though our biggest competition is sleep – that’s six to seven hours a day when you’re not consuming our content“), the economic slowdown or the steady decline in viewership of linear broadcasting. How does one of the most important Television executives in the Czech republic plan to deal with them?

Difficult times are coming to the Czech republic, with inflation climbing to 20 per cent, real wages falling and a recession on the horizon. What does this mean for Nova?

Of course, we are looking around, we know what is happening. Difficult times are coming, and they are not just affecting us, the TV companies, but most other sectors as well. For us, it’s specific in that households have a set entertainment budget and the moment that budget comes under pressure, we feel it.

Can you see in your numbers yet that people are cutting back?

It hasn’t fully manifested itself yet, but it will come as households are exposed to more and more costs. But even though we’re in for tougher times ahead, I don’t believe they’re going to change the overall trend – which is that the proportion of people looking for quality video content is increasing. Yes, there may be a slowdown, a hiccup, and we need to prepare and adapt, but that doesn’t mean we stop doing our job and offering people our content.

Plus, the good news is that in terrestrials, Nova’s broadcasts are free, so the bulk of our content can be watched by most households.

When Netflix presented its latest results, it showed that it had lost a million subscribers. As someone who’s building a similar service in the Czech Republic – does that worry you?

Our positions are different. Netflix is in 70 percent of households in the U.S. market, and it’s clear that if you have that kind of penetration and you’re newly competing with a growing number of other streaming companies, there are going to be fluctuations.

But the situation is different in the Czech republic and Slovakia. The penetration rate of SVOD services here is only around 25 percent, so I don’t think we’re going to see such a dramatic decline. On the other hand, low penetration means a great opportunity and I am convinced that, whether it takes three years or five years, we will eventually catch up with America and Western Europe in this respect.

~~SVOD: „Subscription Video on Demand“. It is an online video library to which the viewer subscribes and can then watch video content. These are services such as Netflix or Voyo.~~

AVOD: „Advertising-based video on demand“ or video on demand that is monetised by advertising. The viewer does not pay to watch the online video, but must watch an advertisement to watch it. This is the case, for example, with YouTube.

Linear broadcasting: „Live“ broadcasting as we know it, with programmes following each other organically, with a clear start time. The viewer adapts to the programme.

NON-LINEAR BROADCASTING: On-demand content that the viewer can watch when it suits them – for example, SVOD or AVOD. The programme adapts to the viewer.

Voyo’s SVOD service is a bet on the future for Nova, making it clear that you want to be at one million subscribers in three years. Are online video services like Voyo or Netflix the future of television?

It may be fashionable to think so now, SVOD is in the spotlight and these services are growing like mushrooms after the rain. But SVOD is only one part of the answer. What I’m really interested in is coming up with the ideal mix of channels through which our viewers can watch premium video. I want to create a robust, resilient model, a Nova Content Hub of sorts, where everyone chooses a service according to their preferences: some will watch linear TV, others SVOD, others AVOD, and still others will prefer formats like HbbTV.

My goal is not to focus on a single channel in this ecosystem, but to deliver content on each of them: each of us is different, and each of us watches TV differently – my job is to have all of these channels covered – and to be present in as many homes, tablets and mobile phones as possible.

If we can still focus on Voyo for a little bit longer – the trend around the world today is to introduce “ad-supported SVOD” subscription models. HBO and Hulu offer them, Netflix and others are testing them. Is this an approach that makes sense from your perspective?

The reason Netflix and others are introducing “ad-supported subscriptions” is simple – if you have the aforementioned 70 percent market penetration and you want to capture another 10 to 15 percent of households, you need to introduce a cheaper subscription model through which to lure new customers.

And that’s now happening, although the reintroduction of an ad-supported SVOD service will be interesting to watch in practice. Personally, I’m not at all sure that this ad-supported subscription model will be rolled out in Western markets, especially the premium market in the US. By trying to pick up 10 percent of new subscribers, Netflix could also cannibalize the 20 percent of current subscribers who currently pay full price. Conversely, this model will almost certainly be introduced in Asia, and in India, for example, Netflix could gain tens of millions of potential subscribers from this.

But don’t you foresee a similar model for Voyo?

We don’t. Voyo is in a different situation, it’s a premium product where original content is constantly growing: we currently have 35 scripted projects in development, pre-production or production for Voyo. When I joined CME two years ago, we had three such shows.

Isn’t this programming offensive coming at the expense of linear television?

We’re managing both – we’re developing a number of new shows for linear as well. We’ll unveil the fall programming schedule this week, and I think viewers will be surprised. Again, I’ll compare it to the time when PPF acquired Nova – it was a time that I’ve described before as a sleeping giant, there wasn’t enough development or new ideas.

I said then that my mission was to “reinvent Nova” – and now we are in the middle of that process. Storytelling, the content we produce, is key. In the TV business, you can either make people laugh and cry, or you won’t be successful. It’s that simple. That’s why half of my time is focused on developing new content, we have a strong creative team that perhaps exceeds the capabilities of Czech Television.

In the TV business, you can either make people laugh and cry or you won’t be successful. It’s that simple.

Full article for subscribers on info.cz.

Source: info.cz

HBBTV AWARDS 2022 OPEN FOR ENTRIES

The HbbTV Association, a global initiative dedicated to providing open standards for the delivery of advanced interactive TV services through broadcast and broadband networks for connected TV sets and set-top boxes, is pleased to invite entries for this year’s HbbTV Awards.

The contest takes place as part of the 10th HbbTV Symposium and Awards on November 9-10, 2022 in Prague, jointly hosted by the HbbTV Association and Czech Association of Commercial Television (AKTV). The HbbTV Awards will be held for the fifth time, showcasing and celebrating best practice and excellence in the HbbTV community.

The providers of HbbTV applications and services are welcome to submit their entries through this online form; the website also details the terms and conditions of the free competition. There are six awards and one judges’ award.

The categories for the HbbTV Awards 2022 are:

• Best use of HbbTV for advertising-based solutions
• Best tool or product for HbbTV service development or delivery
• Best technology innovation in an HbbTV product or service
• Best interoperability and conformance tool
• Best marketing or promotion of an HbbTV-based service
• Best individual contribution to the HbbTV Association
• Judges’ award “HbbTV newcomer of the year”

A company may enter into as many of the categories as they like. Each submission will require a separate form to be completed. The awards are free to enter. Entries will be judged on their execution, impact and innovation.

The closing date for submissions is September 15, 2022. A shortlist of finalists will be put forward to a panel of industry experts who will select the winners. The finalists will be announced by October 15, 2022.

The prizes will be awarded at a prestigious ceremony on November 10 as part of the HbbTV Symposium and Awards 2022. All finalists are invited to attend the awards ceremony.

The winners of the fourth HbbTV Awards, held in 2021 in Paris, France, include Nowtilus, Fincons Group, Verance, Dotscreen, Thi Thanh Van Nguyen (Samsung) and Mediaset España.

“The HbbTV Awards 2022 provide an excellent opportunity to showcase the latest best-in-class examples of applications and services enabled by the HbbTV specifications. The strong interest we have received from industry players before opening the competition reflects the HbbTV Awards’ high recognition in the connected TV (CTV) community. The HbbTV Awards are now open for entries and I would like to encourage all industry players to enter the contest,”

said Vincent Grivet, Chair of the HbbTV Association.

The HbbTV Symposium and Awards 2022 targets platform operators, broadcasters, advertisers and adtechs, standards organisations and technology companies, offering first-hand insights into the latest and most innovative services available to viewers, operators and advertisers.

The annual key summit of the CTV industry will take place at the National house of Vinohrady. The prestigious neo-renaissance building, centrally located in Prague, will provide a first-class base for conference attendees, sponsors and networking.

Details on the sponsoring packages at the HbbTV Symposium and Awards 2022 and the preceding preview and demo events can be found in the Call for Sponsors. Industry executives and experts interested in participating in the conference programme are welcome to submit their proposals for presentations on the Call for Speakers.

Contact HbbTV Association:
Angelo Pettazzi
Chair HbbTV Marketing and Education Working Group (MEWG)
email: angelo.pettazzi@kineton.it
Tel: +39 02 2514 8355

Press Contact:
Thomas Fuchs
Fuchs Media Consult GmbH
email: tfuchs@fuchsmc.com
Tel: +49 171 4483 168

VOYO IS DOING FUNDAMENTALLY BETTER THAN WE PLANNED. ORDINACE IS STILL THE DRIVING FORCE, SAYS DANIEL GRUNT OF CME

Daniel Grunt returned to CME a year ago as head of digital activities. His task was to secure one million subscribers for Voyo within five years. How’s it going?

There was no escaping that campaign. In the spring, Nova TV paid for billboards in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to promote its Voyo paid internet video library. No sooner had one campaign ended than another began – this time promoting a particular show, the miniseries Iveta. The three-part dramatic series about the early years of singer Iveta Bartosova’s career has become one of the most successful shows Voyo offers.

Voyo calls similar shows made just for Voyo the Voyo Original. They include the miniseries The Případ Roubal and Guru, the comedy series Národní házená, and the current premiere of Jitřní záře, a gripping story about an alternative family that wants to name a child according to their own rules. Coming up in the fall are Král Šumavy and the comedy novelty Guma.

“All the Voyo Originals are working extremely well for us. But the backbone is still Ordinace v růžové zahradě. The fact that we dared to flip it in the fall of 2021 from a linear broadcast, where it was still doing 900,000 to a million viewers on one broadcast day, helped us. It showed the market that we were serious. The series hasn’t gone down in quality, length or cast, it’s still the same. Rather, it has caught a second wind,” says Daniel Grunt, CME’s Chief Digital Officer.

It’s a testament to the strength of the series Ordinace that, unlike other series, it doesn’t take the usual summer break. Instead, it will launch a new sequel every week.

How to determine success

While Nova keeps track of how many viewers have watched a particular show, the more important metric is the number of subscribers gained. The total number of subscribers comfortably surpassed the 350,000 mark in the spring. The broadcaster will not publish more precise figures, as no video library on the market publishes similar business data. However, subscribers are growing faster than Nova itself expected.

“We are doing fundamentally better than we planned and dreamed. But we are not accelerating production plans because the ones originally announced were ambitious themselves,”

Grunt points out.

CME’s management’s mission is clear: to acquire one million paying users in the Czech and Slovak markets by 2026. So far, it looks like a realistic task. “But there is a huge question mark about what the economy will look like next year or in two years,” reminds the head of CME’s digital activities. Coincidentally, recently published surveys suggest that Czech households will start cutting back on culture, entertainment and other leisure activities.

In addition to how many people have paid for access to Voyo, TV stations are also interested in average viewing time. On average, users now spend 12 hours a week watching shows. Nova commissions various surveys that show Voyo has the highest proportion of users who watch daily or several times a week compared to competing services. Typical users are households of people in their thirties and forties, and Voyo has a greater representation of women compared to linear TV.

Betting on localism

No local service will ever have the budget of the global players. The annual investment by Netflix or Walt Disney in content production is in the tens of billions of dollars. Even if all the TV stations in the Czech market put their production budgets together, they wouldn’t pay the equivalent of one American series. That’s why Voyo highlights local themes, popular local actors and a wide library of domestic cinema. It has about 750 Czech films on offer.

However, the arrival of Disney+, HBO Max and other global apps on the Czech market also presents a complication when buying content from abroad. The biggest hits are jealously guarded by American production studios, who want to have exclusive films and series on their own platforms.

“So we are reaching out a little bit differently than the American film studios. For example, Scandinavian crime films work very well for us. We have quite a lot of interesting series from the UK, from the BBC and ITV. That’s something that works here, so we’ll keep going after interesting European work,”

Grunt hints at a buying strategy.

“In all the countries where CME operates, we want to be the strongest local service of first choice for people who want to watch quality local content. Whether it’s movies, series, or some shows, reality shows, whatever else. That’s the place we want to occupy in the market,” he explains.

“The biggest focus and investment at CME is on Voyo. It is the backbone of the entire digital transformation of CME in all the countries where we operate. Voyo cuts across the structure of TV stations, basically almost all teams. Then it automatically transforms the whole company,” Grunt continues. “Voyo may have been around for 11 years, but it went through waves where it was a priority, then again it wasn’t, it was in a drawer and AVOD – a free archive of shows with video advertising – was being pushed. With the arrival of a new owner, it’s become a key priority for the group again,” he explains.

Voyo has a different position in Slovenia, where they have developed paid content all the time, while they don’t have a free archive with ads at all. “Slovenia is very much a pay-TV market, they monetise all long-form content through Voyo. It’s a small market with two million inhabitants, but they developed Voyo and grew continuously. In all other markets, the Voyo curve was flat for a long time, it didn’t move for maybe ten years,” recalls the director of digital activities.

In the Czech Republic, Voyo’s development has been very fast. “We are still learning. As it grows quickly under our hands, we often forget to realise that we have only been working on it for a little over a year,” concludes Daniel Grunt. CME wants to use the experience gained for other markets.

Source: lupa.cz

MEDIA INVESTMENTS WERE HIGHER IN MAY, BUT GROWTH SLOWED DOWN

Year-on-year growth in advertising investment in media continued in May, but was lower than in the previous month.

The monitored volume of advertising investment in media reached a 7% year-on-year increase in May this year. This also marks the fifth month this year that the advertising market has improved, according to Ad Intel data from Nielsen Admosphere. However, compared to April, which showed an increase of almost a quarter (+23%), May’s growth is lower. This may be related to last spring’s relaxation of anti-video measures and the associated noticeable increase in ad investment.

For the first five months of this year, the year-on-year increase in monitored advertising investment is 13%, with the strongest growth in outdoor advertising (+40%), followed by radio (+21%). Television advertising remains the strongest.

Source: mediaguru.cz

Investment in internet advertising is not included in the reported overview, as the monitoring only covers display advertising.

Again, we remind you that the volumes monitored do not reflect the actual volumes invested in media advertising, but describe the trend.

Source: mediaguru.cz

HBBTV SYMPOSIUM AND AWARDS 2022: CALL FOR SPEAKERS

The 10th HbbTV Symposium and Awards on November 9-10, 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic, will provide a unique platform to present and discuss the latest developments in the connected TV industry. The HbbTV Association, which co-hosts the in-person event with the Czech Association of Commercial Television (AKTV), is inviting industry executives and experts to address the top-level audience as speakers in the conference programme.

“This year’s HbbTV Symposium and Awards will, as always, provide important insights into the future of the broadcast and broadband industry. Your thoughts on current developments, new products and services and future trends are important to us. I would therefore like to encourage you to take part in the Call for Speakers and share your proposals for contributions with us,” said Vincent Grivet, Chair of the HbbTV Association.

The HbbTV Symposium 2022 is open for speakers on the following topics, particularly when supported by experiences gained from providing live services. The submission of additional topics will also be considered.

Reviews of new and existing HbbTV deployments in different markets and countries.
Using hybrid broadcast and broadband to improve viewers’ choice and experience from the perspectives of:
– Consumers and/or consumer organisations
– TV and other device manufacturers (e.g. supporting multiscreen services, companion/second screen)
– Operators and Service Providers
– Broadcasters (both public service and commercial)
– Regulators, National governments and/or European organisations
Advertising and other means of monetizing the hybrid approach to television (e.g. addressable TV ads):

– Targeted Advertising (TA): Broadcast ad substitution
Client-side and server-side substitution
Watermarking-based substitution
– Targeted Advertising: implementations, use case examples,
experiences, future developments, challenges
– Benefits of standards-based TA (opposed to proprietary
solutions)

HbbTV Operator Application (HbbTV OpApp):
– Explanation, implementations, best practices, specification updates
– New deployments
Experiences in promoting and marketing HbbTV:
– From a technology perspective
– From a Business Development perspective
GDPR & ePrivacy – experiences in an HbbTV-enabled world:
– Audience measurements, viewer behaviour and other in GDPR compliance
– Asking for and obtaining consent in the context of a TV set
– Cookies and their successors
Content Media Security, rights management and content protection in hybrid TV services:
– DRM and HbbTV (e.g. examples, services, solutions)

HbbTV best practices:
– OTT, on demand/catch-up streaming services
– Companion screen applications
– Voice-Control with HbbTV
– 360° VR – increase viewer engagement
– Experiences with Operator Application
– Content discovery services
– Accessibility (Spoken subtitles, Audio descriptions, Sign language)

Delivering advanced viewing experiences including:

– Ultra-High Definition
– High-Dynamic Range
– Next Generation Audio
– Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality/AI

Cutting edge innovations and technology in the deployment of HbbTV-enabled services and devices.
Tools and techniques for developing and testing HbbTV applications and services.
HbbTV and other standards. For example:
– 3GPP 5G Technology/5G Broadcast
– DVB-I: role/involvement of HbbTV, new specifications
– IP-Broadcasting (e.g. DVB Native IP)
– ATSC 3.0 watermarking
HbbTV Conformance Regimes: why it is needed, country best practices, implementation, stakeholder education
Update from US market, e.g. inspiration for European market: ATSC 3 datacast applications, new applications, trends (local news, education)
Inside HbbTV: how the organisation works, Working Groups, Task Forces, participation, involvement, benefits of membership
The future for HbbTV: market trends and future directions
Building a better HbbTV ecosystem: thoughts and ideas on how the HbbTV Association in cooperation with members and market players could foster a more efficient HbbTV ecosystem
Lessons learned by service providers in deploying HbbTV services and doing business with HbbTV. What could be improved?

If you would like to speak at the HbbTV Symposium 2022, you are welcome to send us an outline of your proposed presentation through this online form by July 15, 2022. Please provide the title, an abstract (max. 200 words), a speaker’s biography (max. 150 words) and a speaker’s photo.

The HbbTV Symposium will also host the 5^th edition of the HbbTV Awards, featuring a wide range of categories designed to acclaim best practice and excellence in the HbbTV community. Details on the categories and participation will be announced in due course.

The annual key summit of the connected TV industry will take place at the National house of Vinohrady. The prestigious neo-renaissance building, centrally located in Prague, will provide a first-class base for conference attendees, sponsors and networking.

Details on the sponsoring packages at the HbbTV Symposium and Awards 2022 and the preceding preview and demo events can be found in the Call for Sponsors.

Contact HbbTV Association:
Angelo Pettazzi
Chair HbbTV Marketing and Education Working Group (MEWG)
email: angelo.pettazzi@kineton.it
Tel: +39 02 2514 8355

Press Contact:
Thomas Fuchs
Fuchs Media Consult GmbH
email: tfuchs@fuchsmc.com
Tel: +49 171 4483 168

MONITORING: ADVERTISING INVESTMENTS IN MEDIA ARE GROWING RAPIDLY THIS YEAR

Monitored media advertising investments grew by almost a quarter year-on-year in April. Then for the first four months of 2022 they were up 15 percent, Nielsen Admosphere monitoring shows.

Total monitored advertising investments in the media for the first four months of this year are up 15 percent year-on-year, according to AdIntel’s monitoring by Nielsen Admosphere. Their total gross volume exceeded CZK 30.5 billion for the period. The most significant increase in monitored advertising investments in the media was in April this year, when they showed a 23% growth.

Last year, the covid-19 pandemic knocked down advertising spending mainly in outdoor advertising, which is now the media type with the highest year-on-year growth in April (+77%). Radio (+35%) and television (+22%) also posted high increases in April, while the volume of investments in print also increased by double digits (+15%), according to the monitoring.

Thus, the monitoring data for the first four months of 2022 do not even suggest a slowdown or decline in investment in connection with the war in Ukraine, as some representatives of media operators have pointed out.

Comparison of price list value of advertising space January – April 2022 Comparison of total value of advertising space (Media type – TV, Print, Radio, OOH)

The Internet is not included in the overview because the monitoring of advertising investments only covers display advertising and video advertising and thus does not include all forms of Internet advertising. However, according to AdMonitoring data for the first quarter of this year, growth is registered in this media type as well, especially in programmatic display advertising.

Again, we would like to remind you that the data from the investment monitoring does not reflect the actual financial volume devoted to the purchase of advertising time and space. They are primarily an indicator of the development trend.

Source: mediaguru.cz

ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCIAL TELEVISION CELEBRATES FIVE YEARS AND BRINGS A LOT OF NEWS

This spring marks the fifth anniversary of the Association of Commercial Television whose founding members are the Nova, Prima and Óčko TV groups. During its existence, AKTV has been actively involved in the TV industry and legislative processes and has become a respected stakeholder. To support its marketing activities, it has launched a B2B brand and industry website ScreenVoice, and on the occasion of its 5th anniversary, its visual identity has been refreshed.

The Association of Commercial Television has completed its first five years of successful operation. At its inception, it set itself two main objectives, namely to raise awareness when promoting TV media and to actively engage in the legislative processes affecting TV broadcasters.

In the course of its existence, AKTV has hosted a number of major industry conferences featuring the world’s leading marketing and advertising experts. The most famous names that AKTV has brought to Prague undoubtedly include Mark Ritson, Les Binet, Karen Nelson-Field and Wiemer Snijders. After a Covid-19 break, AKTV held its first conference under the auspices of its newly launched B2B brand ScreenVoice last year. ScreenVoice aims at covering the entire world of television, TV advertising and total video.

“ScreenVoice is the new umbrella for our activities to promote total video and TV as an advertising medium. Under ScreenVoice, we will continue to organise exceptional industry conferences, and this year for the first time, we will conduct our original qualitative research, which is an activity we have only known from our foreign colleagues,“

says Jan Vlček, President of AKTV and CEO of TV Nova.

On the ScreenVoice.cz website, readers will find inspiration, trends, research and news about what is happening in the TV world in the Czech Republic and abroad. Each month is dedicated to one topic, for which original content is prepared. Readers can expect a magazine reading about the first ever TV advertisement, a Christmas or Valentine’s Day ad special, or a reflection on advertising during the Covid-19 period or the war in Ukraine. The topic of the month is complemented by a calendar of industry events, a glossary of terms from the world of total video, or the popular Myths and Facts about TV section, which provides a range of data to debunk the most common myths about TV. A separate category is the archive of AKTV events, where people can find all the recordings of speeches and speakers’ presentations from the last five years.

AKTV’s visual identity has also been refreshed and now it uses the same colour scheme as ScreenVoice. The content of the two websites is different. ScreenVoice primarily targets advertising professionals and those interested in the world of total video, while AKTV focuses on the legislative and regulatory aspects of the broadcasters’ business.

About the Association of Commercial Television

The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) represents the leading commercial broadcasters in the Czech Republic. Its goal is to defend, support and promote their common interests.

AKTV is actively involved in the preparation of national and European legislation relating to commercial TV broadcasting, personal data protection, journalistic work and commercial communication. It is a partner for government authorities, EU institutions and other stakeholders. One of AKTV’s main activities is to protect the copyright of its members and to fight against online piracy.

In addition, AKTV is active in promoting TV as an advertising medium. For communication with advertisers and media agencies, it operates its information website ScreenVoice.cz and regularly organises industry conferences.

PRIMA WILL START AUCTIONING OFF PART OF THE SPACE NEXT YEAR

The Prima Group is trying to counter the expected outflow of advertising GRPs in linear TV and will introduce auction sales for part of its advertising space from 2023, following restrictions on rewind advertising in IPTV. And it is already announcing price increases.

The Prima Group and its media agency Media Club will come up with a novelty in selling advertising space from 2023. Following efforts to cope with the expected outflow of advertising GRPs in linear TV, it will introduce auction sales for part of its advertising space after limiting rewind advertising in IPTV. Clients with the lowest CPP will fall into it, Prima’s commercial director Vladimir Pořízek described in an interview.

At the AdCross tool presentation, you described trends in video content viewership, predicting a decline in linear TV and an increase in video-on-demand (VOD) viewership. Specifically, how do you estimate that linear TV viewership may evolve in 2022 and next year in 2023, and what trends do you expect more specifically for VOD?

According to the numbers, we can see that linear TV viewership grew until 2017, then stagnated for a year and has been declining since 2019, also due to the large number of VOD services on the market. This decline was halted by the covid-19 pandemic, when people stayed at home and watched TV. After people returned to normal life, this decline started to show again. For the number of GRPs available in the market, the situation is even more complicated because the ad-skipping capability of IPTV operators takes away a lot of free space to air ads.

We expect the decline of linear TV to continue in the future. Firstly, the number of VOD services will grow – Disney+, Amazon Prime are due to come to our market this year alone, and there will be a joint service between Discovery+ and Warner Bross. And there will also be a growing trend towards watching TV via IPTV operators with delayed viewing services. In Sweden, for example, linear TV now accounts for only 50% of all video viewing.

How much might the number of TV GRPs decrease this year and next as a result of these changes?

Our expectations are somewhere around 3% in the 15-69 target group and 5% in the 15-54 group per year, but these are rather optimistic expectations. We’ve seen much bigger and faster inventory declines around the world, and that was when there weren’t as many VOD services in the market and there wasn’t as fast internet.

What will this mean for Prima as an important player in the commercial TV market? How will you respond to this?

We have been watching this trend for a long time and preparing for it for no less time. Leaving aside the inevitable price increases, one of the next “steps” is the cross-platform metering we introduced this year. It may not make up for all the lost inventory, but we firmly believe that eGRPs will increase and at least partially limit the decline.

So do you expect to see further increases in TV advertising prices? Since when and by how much?

That will be a reality in a declining market, unfortunately. The only question is how much prices will rise and how these price increases will happen. Many clients are convinced that tenders will always bring the price down. They often hear this from their advisors – media auditors. But this fact may have been true in a market where the media space was not sold out. This year, unfortunately, we had to turn down a few long-term clients who had a low price and listened to their advisors’ voices that they should insist on these, for us, no longer feasible conditions… So they ended up with a competitor, but at a much higher price… More than a third of our inflation this year is driven by the fact that we are limiting clients with low CPP. Then for next year, we are preparing another innovation, and that is making deals involving auction principles in the normal negotiation.

What exactly does this mean? Does it mean that you will sell the space at auction?

Yes, we will, but not all of it. We will be selling most of the space in a similar way as before. We do intend to sell the last remnants of our inventory to the lowest bidding clients by auction.

“Price growth will already be a reality in a declining market. The only question is how much prices will rise and how this price increase will happen.”

So what will it look like?

Our negotiations will be divided into several phases. The first phase is called the “preliminary round”. In this preliminary phase, all our clients can ask us for an offer. If they like the offer and take advantage of it, the deal is already done. In the second phase, the standard negotiation as clients and agencies know it takes place, with the only difference that the deal is closed not only by both parties agreeing on the price, but also another condition must be met. This condition is the profitability for the Media Club or TV group. This second phase is divided into several rounds and only a limited number of deals are concluded in each round. Which deal is concluded and in which round is then determined by the profitability for the TV group, which is determined by both the CPP and the volume. The higher the CPP, the better for Media Club/TV, and of course the higher the guarantee, the better for Media Club/TV. Usually, however, clients want a lower CPP for a higher guarantee. So this balance is a delicate thing. The last stage is then the actual auction, which is where the clients with the lowest CPP will fall. But even this stage is limited by space, so some clients may not be reached at all. This should motivate clients to close their deal in the preliminary stage or increase their CPP in the auction.

Do you really believe this will work?

Of course, it will only work if there is an overhang of client demand over TV supply, which is very difficult to predict these days. Nobody knows what will happen next. Will there be a recession? How quickly? For how long?

But we are counting on all possibilities. If there is no excess demand, we always have the option to sell the space without an auction and accept all clients. But even that would only be a matter of a year. With the decline in GRPs that we expect, the demand must necessarily climb back above the supply within one to two years at most.

“Clients with the lowest CPP will fall into the last phase of the auction. But even this phase is limited by space and so some clients may not be reached at all.”

Which type of video on demand (AVOD, SVOD, TVOD) will develop most dynamically on the Czech market and how will the development of the SVOD market be affected by the arrival of foreign players this year?

I think neither. Until now, we have been fed by advertising, so I hope that it will be the so-called HVOD models, i.e. models where clients pay a certain amount for a premium VOD service, but the amount is much less than the usual amount, because viewers are served a limited amount of advertising in addition to exclusive content. As the number of VOD services increases, so will the willingness of viewers to migrate between services. It’s a trend we’re seeing across platforms. The vast majority of viewers take the opportunity to pay for a service, test it for three months and then perhaps cancel it again. That’s why we see the hybrid model as an appropriate solution for our market. Viewers can minimize the fee and retain multiple services. According to many market surveys, more than 75% of viewers perceive advertising as payment for services and are therefore comfortable with it. Moreover, even Netflix has already announced that it will introduce this service model.

Prima also wants to enter the SVOD field this year. Do you already know whether you will sell advertising as part of your SVOD service and what monetization model will you choose?

I believe in the freedom of choice for users, so I hope we will offer all models of content monetisation. But we haven’t reached a final decision yet.

From June, there should also be an announced plan to limit ad skipping in back-viewing for IPTV operators. Last year, you reported that you lost 30,000 GRPs due to the skipping option. How many GRPs can you “save” with this move?

Our main motivation for having to take this step was to prevent further GRP loss, as the trend of GRPs starting to decline was exponential rather than linear. With the growing share of IPTV operators in the distribution of our channels and the growing share of deferred viewing/back-viewing, we simply wouldn’t have anything to sell in a couple of years. The second question is whether we will add any GRPs. I firmly believe that a smaller portion of our inventory will even come back. But we really don’t expect any big numbers.

Prima is talking about a total video strategy for the coming years. Can you give an indication of what the distribution of Prima’s trading inventory will look like for next year and how the trading will be distributed between linear TV, delayed TV or different types of video-on-demand?

We currently have about 3% of our viewership in online inventory, but we only use about 1% on average for eGRPs. The rest we sell on impression as standard. Deferred viewing is currently around 14% and we expect to see growth there in the future. Given that operators have a choice of how to limit ad rollover – for example, by shortening the ad block or replacing linear advertising with online advertising – it will be difficult to predict whether deferred or online inventory will grow faster. But as I said, the classic linear one is definitely not going to grow.

“Our goal is for the online inventory, that we use for eGRPs, to grow at least 1.5% every year. We would like to have at least 10% of inventory in online within five years.”

How will these changes be reflected in the inventory supply in about five years?

Our goal is for the online inventory we use for eGRPs to grow by at least 1.5% each year. We would like to have at least ten percent of inventory online within five years, where we can better reach users with advertising, adjust frequency and, most importantly, substantially improve the affinity of our clients’ campaigns through targeting.

Vladimír Pořízek, Commercial Director, Prima Group

Vladimír Pořízek worked at Prima Television for almost five years as CFO until 2012, after which he headed the buying association Opera of the Omnicom Media Group. In 2014, he returned to Prima as Chief Operating Officer and was later appointed Commercial Director. Before joining Prima, he was CFO of media agency PHD until 2007.

Source: mediaguru.cz