New business television channel hoping to tap growing demand
He's going after the same audience that the Warsaw Business Journal has cultivated - and he says so. This is a small-but-growing middle and upper-middle income bloc of Poles who can make between $3,000 to $15,000 a month. (That's right - a month).
"That's about 50 times greater than the average Polish salary of $350," says Sikora. These are first-generation business specialists, from law firms to Western-style accountants and financial managers to stockmarket analysts and company managers. How many Poles are in this category?
"Maybe about 40,000, heading toward 400,000," says Sikora.
It's this group that is propelling Poland to the continuing high economic growth, between 6-7%, defying "experts" who last fall predicted a slowdown. They're putting things in place not only for more growth but for a huge increase in jobs, country wide.
Sikora is president of Via Media, a Polish-American who found his footing in Chicago as a film maker for public television, a programmer and a documentary producer. He was recruited by Atomic TV to return to Poland as their general manager in March 1996. When Atomic was wrapped into @Entertainment's digital channel Wizja TV, he took his skills to Romania.
But Poland was too much of a challenging frontier to leave for long. So this spring he, Rick Richardson and others began planning a TV business channel, "a mixture of CNBC and Bloomberg - although with less market news than Bloomberg." The "soft launch" of BTV or Business Television was in May, a formal launch will be in September when, he hopes, there will be some anchor advertisers on board as well as investors.
"We believe the region is ready for TV business. All the other TV programs are focusing on general entertainment, targeting wide audiences. Nobody is targeting the niche markets," he adds.
They hired away Milan Subotic from TVN, who had left TVP1 to shape TVN's "Fakty" evening news, and are training the rest of the young business news staff from scratch. (Sikora admits to being an "ancient" 38.) At first, "we can start with just a few hours of programming. We want to grow with our viewers. They may need 24-hour news maybe six months from now. And investors are coming to him, at least for sit-downs. He took a half dozen calls during a half-hour telephone interview, including some flying in from London. Doesn't mean they'll bite. But it does mean that - despite the market chaos in Russia - there are lots of people ready to invest in the booming Polish market.
• • •
If you haven't seen the balding, svelte Ray Bridgeford around the premises of his Restaurant 99, there's a good reason. "I've been gone a lot - we're looking at two or three other projects," he says. He's been looking far afield for new ideas - like in Sweden, where he recently spent five days. Nothing like building on success. With a new outdoor verandah that can seat 60, and with a sturdy-looking awning over it that so far has resisted the Warsaw winds, "We're now serving nearly 300 people a day," he says
And Bridgeford is not a bit unhappy about TGIF moving in down the block, as an anchor restaurant tenant in the latest Atrium building to open, across from Hala Mirowska.
• • •
And speaking of keeping people happy. Krakow is booming with tourists, including tens of thousands of Poles, and at least two dozen new cafes and small restaurants are tucked in back-street corners and on the Old Town Square. And, while some of the hotels give tourists the back-of-the-hand to even think of asking for something touristy such as stamps, the city has put a post office kiosk in the middle of the square which is open long hours and weekends to satisfy that demand. Anyone listening, in Warsaw?
• • •
Who says there aren't good bagels to be had in Poland? I did. But Virginia and William C. Chasey say I'm wrong. Chasey, with partner Andrzej Kaczmarkiewicz, have been working on getting around Poland's "hard water" problem to bring great bagels to the market.
They hired a baker to do the experiments. About six months of them. When the bagels met the taste-test of the Chaseys, the Chasey-Kaczmarkiewicz team then opened the first of two American Kaffe restaurants in lodz two years ago. Now they're looking to expand, to Warsaw if they can find the right site, but also in other markets.
"Our plans call for five new stores in Warsaw and 24 franchised stores in Poland's secondary city markets over the next 24 months," says Chasey. American Kaffe offers not just bagels but also specialty coffees - and the flavored kinds of coffee beans pioneered in the United States by Starbucks. Seeing is believing - and tasting is even better. Right now, this is your telephone-interview update. More after a taste test.
• • •
And speaking of tastes. Those are tricky as consumers rapidly discard food and fashion patterns of the past and try out new products. Like yogurt instead of mayonnaise.
When new high school graduate Ania Skrzypek did a spot of market research to see about mayo preferences - especially who was buying Winiary, Hellman's Original and Hellman's "Babuni" - she found that an astounding number of people had abandoned mayonnaise entirely. She tried her grandmother; her mother; her school friends; her neighbors. She was sure she knew what they were buying. Wrong. "Some of them are on diets and are using yogurt instead. Or they say it's too hot this summer for mayonnaise."
So much for the staple of the past, salads saturated with mayo. It's another wakeup call for makers of these food products. Market preferences of even a year ago may not hold true today. Today, it's consumers who are fast-moving, not just these fast-moving-consumer-goods.
"That's about 50 times greater than the average Polish salary of $350," says Sikora. These are first-generation business specialists, from law firms to Western-style accountants and financial managers to stockmarket analysts and company managers. How many Poles are in this category?
"Maybe about 40,000, heading toward 400,000," says Sikora.
It's this group that is propelling Poland to the continuing high economic growth, between 6-7%, defying "experts" who last fall predicted a slowdown. They're putting things in place not only for more growth but for a huge increase in jobs, country wide.
Sikora is president of Via Media, a Polish-American who found his footing in Chicago as a film maker for public television, a programmer and a documentary producer. He was recruited by Atomic TV to return to Poland as their general manager in March 1996. When Atomic was wrapped into @Entertainment's digital channel Wizja TV, he took his skills to Romania.
But Poland was too much of a challenging frontier to leave for long. So this spring he, Rick Richardson and others began planning a TV business channel, "a mixture of CNBC and Bloomberg - although with less market news than Bloomberg." The "soft launch" of BTV or Business Television was in May, a formal launch will be in September when, he hopes, there will be some anchor advertisers on board as well as investors.
"We believe the region is ready for TV business. All the other TV programs are focusing on general entertainment, targeting wide audiences. Nobody is targeting the niche markets," he adds.
They hired away Milan Subotic from TVN, who had left TVP1 to shape TVN's "Fakty" evening news, and are training the rest of the young business news staff from scratch. (Sikora admits to being an "ancient" 38.) At first, "we can start with just a few hours of programming. We want to grow with our viewers. They may need 24-hour news maybe six months from now. And investors are coming to him, at least for sit-downs. He took a half dozen calls during a half-hour telephone interview, including some flying in from London. Doesn't mean they'll bite. But it does mean that - despite the market chaos in Russia - there are lots of people ready to invest in the booming Polish market.
• • •
If you haven't seen the balding, svelte Ray Bridgeford around the premises of his Restaurant 99, there's a good reason. "I've been gone a lot - we're looking at two or three other projects," he says. He's been looking far afield for new ideas - like in Sweden, where he recently spent five days. Nothing like building on success. With a new outdoor verandah that can seat 60, and with a sturdy-looking awning over it that so far has resisted the Warsaw winds, "We're now serving nearly 300 people a day," he says
And Bridgeford is not a bit unhappy about TGIF moving in down the block, as an anchor restaurant tenant in the latest Atrium building to open, across from Hala Mirowska.
• • •
And speaking of keeping people happy. Krakow is booming with tourists, including tens of thousands of Poles, and at least two dozen new cafes and small restaurants are tucked in back-street corners and on the Old Town Square. And, while some of the hotels give tourists the back-of-the-hand to even think of asking for something touristy such as stamps, the city has put a post office kiosk in the middle of the square which is open long hours and weekends to satisfy that demand. Anyone listening, in Warsaw?
• • •
Who says there aren't good bagels to be had in Poland? I did. But Virginia and William C. Chasey say I'm wrong. Chasey, with partner Andrzej Kaczmarkiewicz, have been working on getting around Poland's "hard water" problem to bring great bagels to the market.
They hired a baker to do the experiments. About six months of them. When the bagels met the taste-test of the Chaseys, the Chasey-Kaczmarkiewicz team then opened the first of two American Kaffe restaurants in lodz two years ago. Now they're looking to expand, to Warsaw if they can find the right site, but also in other markets.
"Our plans call for five new stores in Warsaw and 24 franchised stores in Poland's secondary city markets over the next 24 months," says Chasey. American Kaffe offers not just bagels but also specialty coffees - and the flavored kinds of coffee beans pioneered in the United States by Starbucks. Seeing is believing - and tasting is even better. Right now, this is your telephone-interview update. More after a taste test.
• • •
And speaking of tastes. Those are tricky as consumers rapidly discard food and fashion patterns of the past and try out new products. Like yogurt instead of mayonnaise.
When new high school graduate Ania Skrzypek did a spot of market research to see about mayo preferences - especially who was buying Winiary, Hellman's Original and Hellman's "Babuni" - she found that an astounding number of people had abandoned mayonnaise entirely. She tried her grandmother; her mother; her school friends; her neighbors. She was sure she knew what they were buying. Wrong. "Some of them are on diets and are using yogurt instead. Or they say it's too hot this summer for mayonnaise."
So much for the staple of the past, salads saturated with mayo. It's another wakeup call for makers of these food products. Market preferences of even a year ago may not hold true today. Today, it's consumers who are fast-moving, not just these fast-moving-consumer-goods.
