Kicking off a series of profiles of executives from Central and Eastern Europe who are redefining the business, CME’s chief content officer Igor Draguzet outlines how he’s helping steer the fast-growing broadcaster and streamer through digital transformation under an expansive new owner.

September brought a seminal moment for Prague-headquartered Central European Media Enterprises (CME) when the roll-out of its Voyo streaming service reached Croatia. The move means the company’s SVoD platform is now present in each of the six territories in which it operates, also including Bulgaria, Romania & Moldova, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Igor Draguzet

“It was one of the missing pieces of the jigsaw,” says CME chief content officer Igor Draguzet.

The exec has been with the company since 2015 and oversees programming for its 43 TV channels, which reach a total of 49 million people, as well as Voyo, which is currently at one million subscribers having been introduced in 2012.

But Voyo came more to the fore three years ago when US telecommunications giant AT&T offloaded its 64% stake in CME to Czech investment group PPF. The latter, established by the republic’s wealthiest businessman, Petr Kellner, paid US$2.1bn for the business and made digital transformation a priority.

“PPF is a very strong Czech investor in banking, in technology and they’re expanding their investment in media,” says Draguzet, citing the company’s most recent deal to increase its stake in Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 to over 15%. “They’re a really strong player in Central and Eastern Europe.”

Just as AT&T was getting its house in order following the acquisition of Time Warner (which built up its shareholding in CME from 2009), so PPF set about reshaping its new asset, with chief investment officer and former Modern Times Group, Apace Media and HSBC exec Didier Stoessel installed as CEO.

“Up until October 2020, the company was mostly focused on its linear business,” says Draguzet. “Since then, the emphasis has shifted to a bigger picture: to try to leverage the linear business to grow digital, with the strategic decision to focus on SVoD rather than AVoD, although we also have that in five of our six markets.”

TV Nova crime drama Specialisté

The exec says there has been an 80% increase in content investment at CME since PPF took over and he is keen to point out that although Voyo is a priority, the SVoD drive is not at the expense of linear. “It’s not a binary choice. We want to grow both and we’ve been quite successful in doing that,” Draguzet explains.

With linear TV remaining comparatively strong across the CEE region compared with markets such as the US and UK, where streaming is rapidly taking over, the reach of those 43 CME channels remains strong, with many maintaining market-leading positions.

Its flagship TV Nova channel in the Czech Republic – known for series such as crime drama Specialisté, medical drama Ordinace v Růžové Zahradě and daily soap Ulice – has a whole suite of Nova-branded, genre-based network spin-offs.

It’s the same with bTV in Bulgaria, Pro TV in Romania, Markíza in Slovakia and RTL in Croatia, where CME last year paid €50m (US$54m) to acquire RTL’s interests in the country. The latter transaction, which helped pave the way for the expansion of Voyo, also presented scope for collaboration with fellow Adria operations in Slovenia, where CME already has channels, including Pro Plus.

“There are many opportunities we see in doing content that appeals to both Croatian and Slovenian audiences and, indeed, beyond, because there is an appetite and a habit for consuming content from these countries in the wider region, such as in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says Draguzet.

Medical drama Ordinace v Růžové Zahradě

While CME still sees plenty of potential in linear and the exec notes CEE TV advertising remains on a strong upward trajectory, he identifies the company’s greater opportunity for growth in SVoD and says achieving this is easier precisely because of the solid legacy business.

CEE audiences may, for now, be migrating to digital more slowly than in other parts of the world but the Voyo push is also to some degree an acknowledgment US streamers are making inroads. In its domestic market, where Voyo has its greatest following with over half-a-million subscribers, the service remains in second place behind Netflix. In Slovenia, however, where Voyo has around 160,000 customers, it is in the number one position.

“The Czech Republic and Romania are markets of special interest for companies like Netflix, Disney and SkyShowtime and we can’t just acquire content from them there for SVoD. But we are not trying to compete,” says Draguzet. “We see ourselves as a complementary service. We try to position ourselves as the local champion, primarily focusing on producing and featuring local content. So if people are going to have, say, two subscriptions, one local and one international, we want to be the local one.”

To this end, the aforementioned 80% increase in content investment since the PPF acquisition has seen CME boost the number of its original productions in various stages of development from low double figures to 85 by the end of last year, with the total now topping 100.

Comedy-drama Sex O’Clock is set for a second season

“We are shifting more and more of our investment in the direction of growing our local content library and, of course, we notice that foreign acquired content has less and less power to generate audiences for us because it’s distributed everywhere by everyone,” says the exec.

“You don’t have that exclusivity you used to have by offering the latest movies or series. It’s now a patchwork of rights, either linear pay, free-to-air, SVoD or whatnot, so the power of that content is on the wane. So while we are seeing double-digit growth in budgets for local content, we are seeing investment in foreign acquired flatlining for a couple of years, with the outlook that this won’t change in the near future.”

Draguzet cites The Extractors as a new homegrown title of particular interest, a drama based on real-life intelligence officials whose task it is to remove Czech citizens from hazardous situations around the world.

“Premium drama is a strong tool for us but we see it as a marketing tool and it’s mostly using the power of real stories, so we’re leaning into real stories because they resonate strongly with our audiences,” he says.

The dual linear/SVoD growth strategy sees streaming gain the advantage, however, in terms of windowing, with scripted series released a week in advance via Voyo before heading to broadcast.

Daily soap Ulice

“The biggest driver of growth for us on SVoD is the local content and there are two categories of that,” Draguzet explains. “One is original content commissioned exclusively for the SVoD platform and the other is linear content that’s available in a preview before broadcast. That’s been driving the growth immensely.”

Across a region where languages and cultures differ significantly, parity between the Czech Republic and Slovakia presents the most immediate opportunities within the business for cross-border commissions.

“The Slovak market is in a similar economic situation and the linguistic barrier is low. There is a close proximity in culture and mentality, so with all the differences that might exist, content travels between those two territories,” says Draguzet.

“All SVoD commissions, for example, are done jointly between our Czech and Slovak services. We see this as a great opportunity because not only do we tell stories that somehow appeal to two audiences in both markets, but we also work with the Slovak producer on our series in the Czech Republic and vice versa. It has true coproduction potential.”

Scripted Voyo originals that have debuted this year include fantasy drama Vědma, department store drama Zlatá labuť, and comedy-drama Sex O’Clock, recently renewed for a second season. But Draguzet says CME is also witnessing increased demand for non-scripted content and so the company is responding by delivering more to its audiences, developing in-house but continuing to seek successes from the international market as well.

Voyo originals fantasy drama Vědma

Pro TV in Romania already offers entertainment formats including Got Talent, The Voice, MasterChef, Survivor and Ninja Warrior, for example, and its own adaptation of Love Island is also debuting this year, with SVoD again getting first dibs.

“I’m really excited about seeing what Love Island can achieve for Voyo on Romania and there’s a new season of that coming up also in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There’s a reboot of Big Brother after many years in the same market also focussed on the Voyo audience, so I’m really excited about those non-scripted opportunities,” says Draguzet.

“The good thing about Voyo is it’s a single brand, but there are separate services, so we are catering the content offering towards local needs and local tastes. This is where our experience and knowledge of these markets from us being a linear broadcaster there for decades comes into play. We really know what makes people excited about content.”