HBO sets up head office in Budapest
TV movie channel HBO is setting up its headquarters for Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest as part of a restructuring move that will help coordinate the company's regional offices. The station currently broadcasts from Hungary.
HBO's Central and Eastern European offices are located in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and Bucharest. In Poland, HBO has 375,000 subscribers and is distributed by a number of cable companies, including United Pan-Europe Communication's (UPC) Polska Telewizja Kablowa and UPC's digital platform, Wizja TV.
Phil Roter, the managing director of HBO Polska, will assume the position of CEO for Central and Eastern Europe. The name of the new country manager for HBO Polska will be announced shortly.
According to Roter, the new structure will allow HBO's Central and Eastern European offices to maintain the local profile of marketing activities and deliver a product tailored to specific markets. "Thanks to this (restructuring) process, HBO will be more accessible across the region and will offer consumers new channels, more programming choices, and more local programming," Roter said.
The Warsaw office will continue its standard operations. In 1999, HBO said it would invest $10 million in Polish cinematography over the next five years. Roter said the restructuring will not affect the declared investment. HBO is also preparing for its biggest national marketing campaign, called "HBO's open preview," which will be carried out Sept. 28-Oct. 8 in cooperation with selected cable operators and Wizja TV. In addition, TVN, a commercial terrestrial broadcaster, will air 20 and 30-second spots announcing HBO's open preview.
