TVP looks to Olympic Games to boost night-time ad revenue
By : Anna Kocinska
Polish sport fans are steeling themselves for a two-week Olympic Games marathon in Sydney this Friday. With a 10-hour time difference between Australia and Poland, most fans will have to cope with sleepless nights if they want to watch the games live.
But it's the insomniacs among Poland's sports fraternity that national broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) will be trying to attract as it promises to deliver 13 hours a day of live broadcasts from Sydney. For many fans, staying awake for two weeks may be the price they have to pay for live events, but for TVP the nightly broadcasts will almost certainly lead to healthier ad revenue.
"We expect that September will be a good month for TVP, especially if you consider the advertising market, which is not growing this year," said Pawel Sieniutycz, marketing director at TVP. "We will certainly earn more due to the Olympic Games than last year, in September, when advertising campaigns for pension funds were run. How much? I wouldn't say, but those were huge revenues."
While TVP's expectations are high, there will probably be no great price windfall that will surprise advertisers during the Olympic Games, Sieniutycz said. "Live transmissions will be taking place at night, so you don't know how attractive that time is to advertisers," Sieniutycz said. Advertisers normally buy TV advertising time until midnight. "Still, it's a special event, so such preferences might change."
TVP has prepared four hours of reruns of the most interesting events during the day in case advertisers remain aloof to the idea of buying night-time advertising. Additionally, advertisers will be able to choose from other kinds of programs related to the Olympics. "We will have discussions in the Olympic studio with invited guests such as sportsmen, artists, etc," said Stanislaw Snopek, coordinator of Olympic programs at TVP's Channel One. "And two TVP camera crews, which are in Sydney, will send feeds that will add up to even more programs on the Olympic Games."
According to Sieniutycz, advertisers are already interested in live transmissions and re-runs. "They actually don't need to worry about audience figures at night because we are offering a new product," he said. "They can pay for real audiences their ad campaigns reached while being run at TVP."
Meanwhile, TVP will not be the only broadcaster aspiring to rouse Polish sports maniacs from their sleep. Eurosport, a sports news channel based in Paris, which reaches two million Polish subscribers through cable TV networks, satellite and terrestrial platforms, will provide live broadcasts from Sydney 24 hours a day. As a member of the European Broadcasting Union, Eurosport has guaranteed access to live transmissions of such sports events as the Olympics and the Football World Cup.
Polish viewers will also watch Eurosport's coverage from Sydney in Polish as a Polish language version of the channel has been available since 1996. "At first it was only three hours a day, but since this summer the entire program is in Polish," said Grazyna Nagawiecka-Polec, director of Eurosport's office in Poland. For the moment, Eurosport will compete with TVP for viewers' time and attention only. "We have no advertisers in Poland yet," Polec said. "So far, it's been a question of calculation. Most of Eurosport's advertisers are global companies and for local companies it's not worth paying for global reach." Eurosport broadcasts to 54 countries.
Polsat, Poland's largest private national broadcaster, hasn't tried to compete with TVP for transmission rights to the Olympics. "We checked prices and decided not to. Since you have to buy exclusive rights, it's millions of dollars," said Andrzej Muszynski, head of advertising at Polsat. "We did invest in sport, though."
Polsat is trying to buy the rights to broadcast the coming fight of Andrzej Golota and Mike Tyson, and has already bought the rights to transmit the Champions League. "It starts on September 12," Muszynski said. "We will also run movies in September, so I am not afraid of TVP's coverage of the Olympics being a threat to our position on the market." In August, Polsat had a 30% market share according to estimates made by AGB Polska, a market research company.
"And please remember that the popularity of and audiences for sport events are not fixed values in Poland," Muszynski said. "If Poles are successful, it's O.K., but if they are losers the audiences drop."
Other private TV channels, such as the pay-TV Wizja Sport, which won't be covering the Olympics, are betting on football. On September 2, Wizja Sport offered a live broadcast from Kiev, where the Polish football team defeated Ukraine. It was the team's first victory in years. TVP only re-broadcast the event. Additionally, Wizja Sport, under a two-year contract, is becoming an official sponsor of Poland's junior and senior national football teams.
"You can't compete with TVP, which being a national broadcaster, has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics," said Rafal Niczypor, sports PR officer at Wizja Sport. "So, I would say that our offer will complement TVP's coverage of the Olympic Games."
Wizja Sport will show the Dutch League and the UEFA Cup. "I think that sport fans will certainly divide their time between the Olympics and football matches," Niczypor said. "If you consider the number of soccer fans, football is the most popular sport in Poland."
The next two weeks will show what's more important to Polish sport viewers, football or the competition in Sydney. "One thing is guaranteed, Sydney will be a good test of Polish sports fans' stamina," said Polsat's Muszynski.
