Chris Dziadul, February 12, 2025
United Group to sell Serbia Broadband
United Group has agreed to sell a 100% stake in Serbia Broadband (SBB) to e% PPF Telecom. It has also agreed to sell Eon TV International, the holding company of the NetTVPlus business, and its sports broadcasting rights for the Western Balkans region – Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – to Telekom Srbija. The transactions have a combined value of €1.5 billion and are expected to be completed in H1 2025. They will still leave United Group with several key assets in Serbia including the news and entertainment channels N1 and Nova S. SBB is a leading provider of TV and broadband services in Serbia and has an active customer base of over 700,000.
Canal+ uncovers sports broadcasts irregularities
Canal+ Polska has detected “numerous irregularities” in inspections of sports broadcasts shown in pubs and restaurants across Poland. The most common was showing games without the required Canal+ Sport Pro licence. In many cases, the owners of the establishments only have consumer agreements, which authorise the reception of content in the home. According to the Copyright and Related Rights Act, such actions are punishable by a fine, restriction of liberty or up to two years imprisonment. The latter can be increased to three years if the perpetrator commits the act in order to gain financial profit.
Berlusconi group to withdraw TVN interest
Italy’s MFE-MediaForEurope is likely to drop out of the race to buy the Polish national commercial broadcaster TVN, which is currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. News of the develpment was reported by Reuters, quoting two sources close to the matter. Bids for TVN have already been received from the Polish billionaire Michał Sołowow and a consortium that includes Poland’s Wirtualne Polska.
Hungarian regulators acts against RTL and Digi
The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has initiated proceedings against Luxembourg-registered CLT-UFA and Hungary’s RTL, the operators of the RTL+ streaming service. This follows complaints from several customers who say they were led to believe that all matches in the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League would be shown live on the service. Separately, the GVH has fined Digi HUF111 million (€275,000) for failing to clearly communicate subscriber price increases from January 1, 2023 and an inflation-tracking price adjustment valid from May 2023.
IPTV/cable overtakes terrestrial TV in Czech Republic
Close to half of Czech viewers opt for IPTV/cable technology to watch TV services. According to figures published by the Association of Television Operators (ATO) in its Continuous research 2024 report, the figure stood at 46% as of the end of last year and it continues to grow at the expense of satellite (13%) and terrestrial (41%) reception. IPTV is also driving the popularity of catch-up services, with viewing of those within three days of broadcasting accounting 11.1% of total viewing in 2024. Other stats include that in 2024, 57% of households had their TVs connected to the internet. Furthermore, 92% of households watched TV programmes, and that at least one functional TV set was owned by 87.4% of households. A further 4.2% did not have a TV set but watched programmes on PCs, tablets or mobile phones.
New Latvian TV tender
The Latvian regulator NEPLP has announced a tender for two FTA commercial terrestrial TV channels. They will operate in the country from June 1 this year until December 31, 2026. NEPLP points out that there are currently four FTA terrestrial TV channels operating in Latvia, namely the public broadcaster’s LTV1 and LTV7, both in SD and HD, and commercial services ReTV – registered until at least March 8, 2025 – and Ukrainian language RADA. Parties interested in the tender are invited to submit their applications by February 25.
Ukrainian channels secure Polish distribution
Ukrainian viewers in Poland are now able to watch eight of the most popular channels from their homeland on Cyfrowy Polsat, Netia and Vectra. The channels, contained in a special package, are 1+1 International, KusKus, KVARTAL TV, XSPORT+, STARfamily, STARcinema, Film UA Drama and Dacha.
Internet in Croatia: the stats
Just over half (53%) of internet users in Croatia accessed streaming services such as Netflix, HBO and Disney as of the end of last year. This, according to an annual survey by the agency 4 Market Research for the regulator HAKOM, was up from 45% a year earlier. Significantly, 45% of internet users accesses paid IPTV services. This was up from 44% in 2023 but lower than the totals of 2022 (52%) and 2021 (51%). All told, 74% of respondents in the survey had internet access in their households as part of their service package and 91% believed they had all the necessary services.
Canal+ hires Karolina Niedzielska-Gruca
Karolina Niedzielska-Gruca has been appointed the creative director at Canal+ Polska, effective March 1. In her new role, she will be responsible for, among others, creating and implementing a coherent visual and creative strategy for the broadcaster in streaming in the Canal+ application, TV, digital and social media, as well as planning and supervising all work related to the creation process in implementing programming and marketing strategy. Niedzielska-Gruca was most recently the creative group head at Publicis Worldwide Poland.
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© Chris Dziadul, 2025
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