[Satellite News 01-15-09] TP Group, the largest telco in Poland, is one of an increasing number of telecoms that is complementing its IPTV offering with satellite service. Despite tough competition with Polsat, Cyfra+ and N in the national market, TP’s launch of its IP-satellite service is considered “a big step forward” for the operator, Dominique Lesage, TP’s director in charge of content, told Satellite News.
    According to Lesage, TP is not looking to sell TV as a standalone offer. Rather, its goal is to attract customers who are looking for a complete multimedia offer provided by a single operator. “We concentrate on selling bundled offers, and thus address a different target group than the satellite TV platforms,” said Lesage.
    TP aims to boost the number of triple-play subscribers in Poland, a market with just under 40 million people, and the operator now is able to reach triple the amount of customers thanks to satellite. “Now we can offer multimedia services to a much bigger group of customers, including those who live in the areas where IPTV is not available,” he said. “So far we have been able to reach around 2.5 million households with IPTV, now, with these two technologies [DTH and IPTV], we are able to address around 9 million households.”
    Many telecoms like TP seem to be opening up to the idea that IP and satellite may benefit more as allies rather than enemies. Lesage said satellite could play an important role in delivering services to customers who live in areas where cable infrastructure is not sufficient. “Satellite allows us to eliminate the problem of limited coverage of our triple-play offer based on IPTV in a relatively short period of time,” he said. “Still, the development of IPTV is crucial for us. We plan to bring IPTV to new locations as well as improve the coverage in the already existing ones. At the same time, we intend to develop our content offer in order to provide all clients — irrespective of the technology they use, the same TV channels and services. In the near future, we are planning to provide video on demand for our DTH customers, since it is now available only for IPTV subscribers.”
    France Telecom (Orange), a major shareholder in TP, launched IP-satellite pay-TV services in France. Even though Orange could be seen as a potential model for TP, Lesage said there are major differences between Polish and French markets. “In Poland we have three satellite-TV platforms. The market position of cable operators is stronger in France thanks to a more developed cable infrastructure. Digital terrestrial television has already been launched in France with success, while in Poland only trials have taken place. We definitely share experience and know-how with our partners in France, but I don’t believe that there are solutions which can be easily copied and transferred from one market to another,” he said.
    Content strategies also are different. Lesage said he was not sure if France Telecom’s launch of its own movie channels would make sense in Poland due to the size of the existing market. “We have succeeded in launching a sports channel in Poland, Orange Sport.”
    However, TP contends that a triple-play offer with greater coverage makes sense for a regional market that could prove tough to crack. “The pay-TV market in Poland is quite crowded already with penetration reaching 66 percent, and it is still growing,” said Lesage. “The growth, however, is slowing down in terms of volume. We can observe a move towards bundled offers, growing consumption of premium content and also demand for new features and services. Consumers are becoming more active and want to have more influence on what and when they are watching TV.”