CEE renews its expectations with Natpe Budapest 2012

During the previous day of the market, June 25th, at least ten top buyers from Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Ukraine and Slovakia were seen at the Sofitel Hotel. Prensario has spoken with some of them, they acknowledged that, though the economical situation is improving slowly, they find this market very comfortable and useful to attend.

Among the exhibitors there are new Korean and Indian participating companies, as well as distributors from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and The Philippines attending for the first time. Aside from the huge Asian delegations, there are more local and regional distributors from Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, Turkey and Russia, year to year.

‘We feel this will be a very good market. The rhythm of registration was good yesterday and we have implemented new things that help sellers to localize easier the buyers: we have worked strongly with MyBudapest, which resulted to be very useful; we have a specific team monitoring how both parts interact’, explains Beth Braen, SVP Marketing at Natpe.

‘This first time we came to learn and see how this works; also, to analyze what has been done and what must be changed. The online meeting support tool had great results, we don't need any more the people on site that executed that in the past. The number of buyers and sellers is quite the same as last year’, she adds. Basic Lead, the previous owner of Discop East, is helping Natpe during the first year of transition.

Another big topic at Natpe Budapest are the U.S. Studios screenings today (Warner Bros.), Tuesday 26th (NBCUniversal), Wednesday 27th (CBS Studios) and Thursday 28th (Disney). ‘We’ve discussed the matter with them and we reached an agreement, trying to keep everybody happy. It’s difficult, but in comparison with the last year, the time slots were settled to avoid bothering the independents’, says Braen.

On the exhibitor side, they are not so convinced. A distributor affirms: ‘I’ve tried to set a meeting with a strategic buyer from Croatia, but he said he has no availability because of the screenings’. Anyway, Prensario found out that the attendance to the first screenings does not make a difference (close to 40 buyers, according to some sources), with no presence of key decision-markers, who have already attended the L.A. Screenings last month.

Tibor Forizs, head of program acquisitions and scheduling at RTL Klub, the leading channel of Hungary, and an authorized voice about the market, comments: ‘I have more meetings this year than in 2011. Natpe Budapest's outlook is good and we have more channels to buy for (eight in total; nine by the end of the year).  We’ll be very active, looking mainly for Latin telenovelas, since Turkish series are more expensive and the results are similar’.

Central and Eastern Europe has experienced a huge growth in the digital area, with a number of new media developments being launched. In Czech Republic, public broadcaster Ceske Televize (CT) will add two new channels in the next two years, while TV Nova was allowed by the local watchdog to distribute Nova News through Internet 18-hours daily and TV Fanda terrestrially and via cable.

Several Russian operators are planning to launch multiscreen services during the second half of the year: Rostelecom will be ready next month, NTV-Plus in August and Megafon in September; they will be joined by MTS in the third quarter and Vimpelcom by the end of the years. Ukrainian cable operator Volia has launched the first HD films channel Volia Kino HD.

Fabricio Ferrara