The Last Place on Earth Linear TV Beats Streaming — For Now
Inside the upside-down world where pay TV revenues are holding steady and Netflix and Amazon Prime are facing a hostile market
Hello Series Business readers! As I write, I can see the Danube shimmering in the late afternoon sun, harried TV distributors running to lunches and — if I listen carefully — I can hear Richard Rushfield grumbling all the way from L.A. Yes, I am at NATPE Budapest, among the ranks of sun-kissed reporters following the Global Elite Auxiliary, as he memorably dubbed the folks on their tour of European television confabs.
Indeed, NATPE Budapest is the third market in the last month to target the television industry in the Central and Eastern European countries of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece and Turkey (CEE, for short). Organized by Brunico Communications — the events company also behind the Banff World Media Festival which my colleague Elaine Low attended and shared her perspective on buying trends and the state of showrunners — the four-day confab took place mere weeks after Content Warsaw in Poland and NEM Dubrovnik in Croatia. (Attendees are feeling stretched and a bit piqued at being forced to choose given that it actually is not realistic to attend them all.)
One potential reason organizers feel CEE can sustain three separate events is likely because it’s the industry’s version of the Upside Down: Audiences here tend to watch linear television, pay TV revenues are holding steady and streamers are facing a hostile market.
“In this region, linear is still healthy and doing well,” László Gáspár, head of infotainment for AMC Networks’ CEE region, told me during our panel devoted to the outlook for unscripted content (a topic I covered recently, as did Elaine this week). “Obviously streaming is here and it’s a competitor, but linear is still . . . the cheapest form of entertainment. For a €15 ($16) monthly subscription in this region, you can access 150 linear channels.”
That said, AMC is on the verge of launching a streaming service for this region; it’s set to debut in September. But the company has spent two years developing its streaming product, and it won’t even be called AMC+ (as previously planned) but rather a new brand entirely: Selekt. Crucially, it won’t be a direct-to-consumer product (and no pricing has been announced), but rather a service distributed through AMC’s cable operator partners in the region and attached to the linear product.
“Everyone expected AMC+ to launch as it did in the U.S.,” says Gáspár, where the streaming service is $5 a month with ads and $9 without, “but it comes with a different brand and strategy.”
Any other approach, frankly, would be foolhardy. As I’ve come to discover during my time here in Budapest, there’s uncharacteristically considered decision-making around streaming in the richly diverse CEE.
In this issue, you’ll learn:
The strategies that have allowed linear TV to remain strong in the region
The role bundling plays in shaping consumer perception
How global streaming giants like Netflix and Prime Video are using splashy series to woo consumers
Why streamers’ future, though, is hyperlocal
The opportunity this creates for established local players
The upshot of the industry’s proliferation of TV market events
 | A guest post by
|