Inside CEE Television

Chris Dziadul, March 17 2026

 

Russia recovers from TV satellite failure

The Russian DTH operator NTV-Plus has resumed broadcasting in Siberia, employing the Yamal-402 satellite owned by Gazprom Space Systems and located at 55 degrees East. This follows the failure of the Express-AT1 satellite earlier this month. Currently, the Yamal-402 satellite is technically capable of broadcasting up to 60 TV channels. Separately, Russia’s leading pay-TV operator Tricolor has reportedly begun broadcasting on the new ABS-2A satellite, which is located at 75 degrees East. It planned to do so from the summer but speeded up its plans following the failure of Express-AT1. Inside CEE Television notes that following the failure of Express-AT1 Eutelsat terminated its contracts for capacity on the RSCC-owned and operated Express-AT1 and Express AT-2. Eutelsat had contracted leases for capacity on these satellites to complement coverage provided by the Eutelsat 36C and 36D satellites located at 36 degrees East.

 

BBC expands in Bulgaria

BBC First and BBC Earth have officially launched on Vivacom’s Eon television platform in Bulgaria. BBC First is available to Vivacom users with the full Eon Premium package and BBC Earth with an Eon Full and Eon Premium subscription. Vivacom, which is part of United Group, has added over 10 new channels and expanded the choice of premium content across all its TV platforms in the last few months. Among the new additions are the streaming platform SkyShowtime, the linear premium channels SkyShowtime 1 and SkyShowtime 2, the Arena channels Arena Action, Arena Comedy and Arena Life, as well as the documentary channel Love Nature.

 

Luhats to head TV3

Toomas Luhats has been appointed head of Estonia’s TV3 Group, effective April 1. He leaves the public broadcaster ERR, where he has been a member of the board since June 1, 2022. Prior to that he founded the streaming platform Jupiter and worked at Telia. TV3 Group is backed by Providence Equity Partners and is also present in Latvia and Lithuania.  

 

Crime pays for Slovak channel

The new thematic channel Joj Krimi reached 1.6 million viewers in its first week of broadcasting. Operated by Joj, one of the leading commercial broadcasters in Slovakia, it made its debut on March 2 and was the most popular channel in the crime genre in its target group, as well in prime time. Indeed, in the latter case, it reached 915,000 viewers in its first week of broadcasting. Inside CEE Television notes that Joj Krimi was known as Wau before being rebranded and is a response to the growing popularity of crime and detective series on the Slovak market.

 

Oneplay takes top spot

The Czech SVOD platform Oneplay had almost 3 billion views and 1.6 billion hours watched in its first year of operation. Formed by the merger of Voyo and O2 TV in March last year, it has already outgrown the strongest multinational streaming players to become the leading player in the Czech market. Oneplay is operated by Central European Media Enterprises (CME), part of the Czech Republic’s PPF Group.

 

SPI teams up with Markíza

SPI International has partnered with CME’s Markíza Group, a leading commercial broadcaster serving the Slovak market. Under the terms of the agreement between the two parties, Markíza will now be responsible for ad sales on SPI’s FilmBox in Slovakia. Aside from Slovakia, SPI also operates a TV ad business in four other CEE countries, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

 

Kyivstar TV grows subscriber base

The Ukrainian streaming platform Kyivstar TV ended 2025 with 2.5 million subscribers. This, according to its owner Veon, was up from 2 million (+24.5%) a year earlier. Kyivstar TV is operated by Kyivstar, itself a subsidiary of Kyivstar Group, which was the first company to be listed on Nasdaq in the US.  Kyivstar Group is itself as subsidiary of Veon, a digital operator with a presence in Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as well as Ukraine.

 

 

The next issue of Inside CEE Television will appear in April.

 

© Chris Dziadul, 2026