Zone Vision has established itself as the market leader in developing and distributing channels for eastern and central Europe. Zone Vision’s CEO and founder Chris Wronski spoke to Interspace about the company’s plans at MIPtv in Cannes…

Eutelsat might be having trouble with its W4 and W1R craft (see separate story) but the former is currently scheduled for launch on or about May 15. One customer eagerly awaiting its successful deployment is London-based Zone Vision, which besides owing and developing its own range of channels for clients like UPC, is also firmly committed to the NTV Plus satellite platform run by Most Group, W4’s key customer.

Zone Vision’s CEO Chris Wronski speaking exclusively to Interspace at the MIPtv market in Cannes last week, says the company is keen to break out of its core markets. “Central and eastern Europe are at the heart of our operation, but there are opportunities outside these regions and over the past 12 months we are [expanding], with shows like Reality TV and our adult channel Private Blue in the UK,” says Wronski. “We are also looking hard at other attractive products in southern Europe and Turkey, Greece and Israel.”

Zone Vision handles distribution for most of Europe’s main international thematic brands in eastern Europe, including Eurosport, Discovery, Turner’s channels, MTV, E! Entertainment and Hallmark. Zone Vision is not involved in MTV Russia, but still looks after VH-1. “The MTV brand was always very strong in Russia, and I have no idea what their books show, but as a brand it is incredibly successful,” says Wronski.

Zone Vision deliberately avoids competing with its client networks, preferring to develop new thematic strands like the UPC joint-venture Reality TV. Wronski says Reality TV, as well as its European movie channel Le Cinema, will also be on the Yes DTH platform in Israel. In Greece he says Zone Vision is close to Multichoice and Mega TV. “We are looking at how many channels we can place there, but it will certainly be one or two, Reality TV being one,” says Wronski. Romantica, Zone Vision’s soap channel, might be added.

The Turkish DigiTurk DTH platform has signed deals for Private Blue and Reality TV. Wronski says: “We are aware of the possibilities of a rival platform emerging, but these problems are almost everywhere in Europe, in Poland, France…but we hope they can successfully launch and then perhaps merge with the rival. The other fact to remember is that smaller operators like ourselves have very little influence as regards developments overall. We just have to get our channels up there. It was the same in Israel where you had these problems between cable and DTH. Naturally we want our channels to be in front of as many people as possible.”

Wronski says it would make a “lot of sense” for Poland’s two rival DTH platforms to merge, “because both outfits have their strengths and weaknesses. However, we have a very good relationship with Wizja [TV] and the comfortable thing with them is that they have a large cable universe as well as DTH.”

Zone Vision admits that it has a reputation for coping with some challenging regions, and Russia must be the most difficult. The key, says Wronski, is to keep financial exposure firmly under control. “We never allow ourselves to have too much exposure in any market, and we spread our risks,” he says. “When we went in Russia, everyone warned us about the risks but we felt we knew our product and with the economies of scale we went with a deal that was competitive, and would build a relationship with NTV Plus and it has worked out well. We are very happy with them and as the situation has stabilised their numbers are growing, and cable is also beginning to represent a market, so we are happy.”

Wronski expects Zone Vision to benefit from W4’s improved coverage of Russia’s huge spread of time zones. “We are in discussion [with NTV Plus] to launch two more channels for Russia, which we expect to be secured through NTV Plus. We are looking at distributing Reality TV and while the deal is not yet signed, we would expect to launch that as well as the adult channel,” he says. “Then we will pause, making sure that the channels are also distributed into cable. Currently it is almost impossible to estimate the size of the Russian market, although it is probably a couple of million cable homes. But you cannot expect income from more than about 300,000-500,000 homes so we are not rushing. We don’t want too much from the market, although we are looking to improvements to be made in signal security, piracy measures and the like, as well as looking for the old municipal systems which might only charge 50 cents a month to subscribers. We will not do deals with these systems because it is unfair on operators who have structured their pay-TV business at a more sophisticated level, with sensible rates for their different tiers.”

Looking to western Europe, Wronski firmly believes there are still niches left to fill. Hence Zone Vision’s development of Private Blue, its adult channel joint venture, despite there being other players in the market. “As everybody knows people watch erotic programmes, and we wanted something that was erotic and also glossy and not just target males but couples,” he says. Wronski’s view is that a niche exists for what he calls “high-quality erotic content”, able to command a premium subscription rate. BSkyB carries the programming in the UK and Wronski says UK cable companies are “quite positive” about the concept.

Reality TV is increasingly available over Europe, and Wronski says there is no reason why this should not include the UK: “We would like to include the UK because Reality provides the sort of programming British viewers seem to love.”

There could be other channels marketed in non-core territories, and Romantica is one that Wronski wants to develop. “Rights and re-versioning content for the UK is expensive so we may pass on the UK for the time being, but there are other territories are more appealing.”

As to the future Wronski says that despite the close relationship with UPC (“and we will co-operate for ever”) there are no plans for closer financial links between the two companies. “But as to an IPO we are planning to take Zone Vision to the market during the first half of next year, and meantime are taking funds from venture capitalists to speed that entry to market.”