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Nova Wants To Capture the Internet
April 22, 2008, Hospodarske noviny
Nova TV is going to launch a news portal to compete with Seznam and Centrum & Atlas
Nova, the leader of the Czech Republic's TV market, is soon going to challenge big Internet players. Wishing to become the Internet market leader as well, the company is going to launch its own news and entertainment portal within a few days.
“We are preparing a news portal in which we have invested tens of millions of crowns. We have even built a new editing team for the portal,” says CEO PetrDvořák.
The broadcaster is still very secretive about the name of the new portal. All Dvořák has disclosed is that the portal is not going to be run on Nova's existing Internet address (www.nova.cz) and that it is going to be launched “very soon”..
According to HN's information channels, the portal is supposed to be launched within a few days.
Novais thus the first TV broadcaster in the country to enter the “cyberspace”.
Prima, another big local player, has also shown interest in the Internet and the Internet advertising market that is estimated to reach at least CZK 3 billion this year.
“Showing interest is a weak word for it, as the Internet is part of any successful TV,” says Prima CEO Marek Singer. However, he admits that his company has not decided yet how they should approach the Internet market. “Possible options include co-ownership arrangements, partnerships, etc.. The thing is that portals do not have content, but that is exactly what we have and can offer,” adds Singer.
Waiting for success
Industry experts are now waiting for the outcome of the first attempt at integrating TV and Internet businesses.
“Nova's position as a successful TV broadcaster would certainly be an advantage in the US. And the Czech Republic? Rather than TV and the Internet, we have seen some successful partnerships between the Internet and newspapers so far,” says IT expert Petr Koubský who feels that Nova will be in a difficult position at the beginning because setting up a “greenfield portal “ is definitely not easy. “Even if you have a lot of money for that”, says Koubský.
Nova's future competitors are not really afraid of the broadcaster entering their market. “We will wait and see what Nova is up to. We can see (and are going to see) TV broadcasters' attempts at getting to the Internet worldwide, but so far most of the successful projects have been joint ventures with some already prosperous portals, such as Warner and AOL,” says Centrum & Atlas CEO Pavel Mucha. He adds that also CME, the owner of Nova, has proceeded similarly in other countries.
“I am not afraid of Nova. It's going to be one of twenty portals that currently exist in the market. I guess they can get one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand real users a day, which is still twenty times less than Seznam,” says Ivo Lukačovič, the owner of Seznam, the Czech Internet market leader.
New advertising mouthful
However, industry experts believe that the nationwide TV broadcaster will succeed in the Internet market. “If Nova succeeded, the distribution of power in the Internet advertising market that is controlled by three companies these days would change dramatically,” says Štěpán Wolde of the media agency Media One.
He believes that TV broadcasters have a good chance of succeeding because they are able to generate news and events, such as the first series of VyVolení (The Chosen Ones).
The heads of Internet portals are going to discuss Nova's Internet market entry and other new trends appearing in the Czech Internet environment in today's Hospodářské noviny Forum.
NovaTV About To Capture Local Web
Industry experts believe that the Czech Internet environment is going to get professionalised. “Besides that, its earnings and social prestige are going to grow,” says Aleš Miklík, Chief Editor of the Internet server Lupa.cz who believes that big content providers, i.e., TV broadcasters, have started looking for new, long-term opportunities of further growth.
Last year alone, the value of the Internet advertising reached about two billion crowns –Seznam's income from advertisers reached 789 million crowns, followed by NetCentrum (Centrum.cz) with 434 million, Mafra with 312 million crowns, ARBOinteractive and another portal - Atlas. “Many Czech projects may disappear due to the increasing pressure of globalised services, but local content will definitely maintain its weight,” adds Miklík. Media One CEO Štěpán Wolde is one of those who appreciate TV broadcasters' new Internet presence. “New big Internet players might change the distribution of power in the market that is currently controlled by just three big companies”.
Internet within reach
The growth of Internet advertising and, as a result, the earnings generated by its sales, supports the growth of high-speed Internet. A survey conducted by Markent shows that about 48 percent of the country's population have Internet access, one percent more than last year. 40 percent of people use the Internet routinely.
The number of homes with high-speed Internet access grew by one third last year. As a result, movies on the web are now available to over one and a half million customers of local Internet providers. However, the Czech Telecommunications Office says that the increase in the number of new connections slowed down last year. Furthermore, the market regulator is not expecting the market to see any major changes this year.
To change this trend, operators tend to cancel data limits and make the Internet access faster. Companies react to Telefónika's wholesale offering which, besides cancelled data limits, includes the possibility of renting disconnected landlines that O2 did not make available to its competitors until recently. Telefónica currently operates about two million lines and the number of inactive lines is about the same.
The companies that stopped limiting data volumes this year in April include GTS Novera, Telekom Austria, as well as the cable operator UPC.
For additional information, please contact:
Romana Tomasova
Director of Corporate Communications
Central European Media Enterprises
+44 (0)20 7430 5357
romana.tomasova@cme-net.com
