by Michał Włodarczyk, polish branch of Gemius

In Poland, online video has long been the talk of the town. Hence the dynamic development of online Video on Demand services. A good illustration of this fact is the increasingly broad offer proposed by such platforms. The most popular ones, i.e. Ipla, Player.pl, are run by TV publishers. The magnet attracting the audience are premiere episodes of these stations’ own productions. They are available online before first TV broadcast. Depending on the platform, the video content my be free (but accompanied by commercial breaks) or paid. The financial model they useis based on micropayments, e.g. via text messages. This guarantees one-off access to a chosen material or enables purchase of a subscription which provides access to multiple materials within a specified time (month, quarter, etc.). Naturally, the greatest influence on the rising popularity of VoD and interest in video content, is the fact that films on demand broke the ritual of strict broadcast times and program schedules. Now anyone can watch their beloved series anytime and anywhere.

A challenge still to be faced by the Polish market is to provide smooth and time lyaccess to the latest foreign film productions. The delay in screening the movies compared to TV or cinema premiers abroad has negative effect on the interest in the legal VoD platforms. Moreover, the Polish internet audience haven’t developed a habit of paying for online video – however I do hope this is just a question of time. The large demand for online services providing illegal video content immediately after premiere, is a burning problem in Poland, despite the poor quality of the image or sound.

When looking at the trends currently ruling in the West, we still have a lot of work ahead of us. A good example here is the development of the platform Netfix and its expansion on subsequent markets. The company is a main global player in online film and series distribution. The unique nature of the solution stems from the enormous emphasis that Netflix puts on the quality and originality of their productions. This means that the series are top notch, surpassing and leaving behind even the best TV formats. Enough said, the most popular series produced by Netflix, “House of Cards”, consumed USD 100 m (the first two seasons, 26 episodes, each nearly one hour long). The revolution the series brought in the media world is founded on several factors:

• the series was created for the exclusive use of online VoD services,
• it was produced by a company specializing in online distribution of video and not by a TV broadcaster,
• all budget earmarked for the production must return through online access fees (and such method of distribution must make money!)
• the quality of the script, cast and director work, as well as the glitz outperform many popular series created by the largest TV broadcasters.

There’s no doubt that projects such as the ones carried out by Netflix are setting the current trends on the global TV market. They also show where the market will be going. The most important developments are the rising quality of production, access on demand and a shift of distribution to the web. In the light of these changes, the user’s screen type will be of no significance. Whether this is going to be a TV set connected to a digital television platform, a game console, computer, tablet or smartphone screen – it’s doesn’t matter at all. The source will be an internet VoD platfrom.