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Profile -- Data și ora publicării: 16.05.2014 13:12:01

Maciej Bral, Disney: „It's time to look further down South to the expansion of Disney Channels”



// Interview by Mihai Pavelescu //

Disney Junior just launched its distribution on UPC Romania, bringing the channels' reach in the country to around 6 million households. A good occasion to meet at Bucharest for a short interview Maciej Bral, Vice President and General Manager for Disney Channels, Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) and Emerging Markets. The responsible of Disney branded channels across the region agreed to answer Media Expres questions about the Romanian but also the South European television markets, for which we launched în March 2014 the magazine Media Expres Adria and the website www.mediaexpres.net.


Rep: What was Disney most notable achievements in 2013, how started 2014, and what we should expect up to the end of this year?
Maciej Bral: We are very pleased with 2013 and 2014 so far in Romania. The Disney Channels are extremely popular and that is not an overstatement, because we managed to secure, take and over-deliver. (...) 2013 was an important year for Disney Junior, because it was officially launched in March 2012, and since then it has a beautiful story from zero to hero. Particularly I am glad it is a favorite channel among mothers, and the key shows that are delivering high are part of a daily routine for the members of the households in Romania. In 2014, with Disney Junior, we managed to achieve amazing peaks, which is being the No. 1 channel among kids channels, with some shows among all viewers 4+. It was such mind blowing, we had feedback from mothers and kids for shows like Doc. McStuffin, like Sofia the First, but also Jack and The Never Land Pirates that are particularly well received in Romania.

Rep: Does Disney have plans to address the low distribution in former Yugoslavia countries (with the exception of Slovenia where it started in 2009)? How?
M.B.: We have been there for many years, we launched the channels (Disney Channel and Disney XD) about the same time like in Romania, maybe slightly earlier in Serbia, but the channels were only in English. But for the last few years, we have been delivering the localized version, subtitled version of XD and subtitled version of Disney Channel. Disney Channel is very popular in Serbia, unfortunately we are not measured in Croatia or in Slovenia, but we are in most of the pay-TV systems. We are in Bosnia i Herzegovina through other operators like Total TV. But Disney Junior is there in the English version, and Disney Channel and XD. Those two are subtitled, partly because this is a norm in the market
For the future, we definitely have quite a lot of discussions and quite a lot of deliberation about the expansion in the so-called Balkans region and that includes Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, but also Bulgaria and certainly you know we have done so much progress and invested so much in Romania, so now it is time to look further down more South and look at the expansion of Disney Channels.
M.B.: And in terms of expanding the distribution, let me share with you that we just launched on UPC in Romania. Now, we have almost every household, except probably there are some smaller operators in the country that do not receive Disney Junior.

Rep: This is the final step for Junior in the expansion on the Romanian market?
M.B.: No, we will knock at all the doors and talk to all the operators, but among the big ones, yes, it's a kind of final, and this is fantastic news for all these people who were calling UPC and asking about Disney Junior

Rep: If digital terrestrial distribution starts in Romania, will Disney be part of it? (What's the situation in other countries?).
M.B.: We look market by market and we know that in countries like Romania and Poland around 80% of the households receive pay-TV television, while we launched a DTT channel in Spain, we have free to sat channels in Turkey, there is a free-to-air channel in Russia. So that really depends on the market economy, the share of the market between free and pay, linear and non-linear. The advertising market is very much the driver, because you need to build extensible business models behind that. In Romania we will rather be concentrating on pay-TV households, because of the reach and the enormous popularity of Disney Channel. When we look at the top ten channels in the country you will find Disney there, so it will be difficult to find the rationale. In Romania DTT will be rather the change of technology plus opening the opportunity for more channels. So I am sure there will be an opportunity for many players, and the market will become more competitive. When we compare Romania with some other CEE or Western European markets, the market is not so competitive. I know when you look to Romania there so many channels, but it is not exactly the case, we have few competitors here, in Poland we have to compete with twelve others, in UK there are 18 channels, similar in France, in Turkey the free sat plus pay-TV distribute around 12 kids channels, so there is more to come here.

Rep: How do you explain in few words the successful ratings of Disney in this market? Is the brand name? Is the programming? How is the situation in the Region?
M.B.: There is no simple answer because there is the advertising market, the subscription market, the capacity market, the competitors’ issue. But I think the answer is the unique character of the Romanian viewer, Romanians embrace the Disney brand and they absolutely adore it. So yes, there is the brand, but there are first of all the Romanian viewers, the Romanians they do love the animation, but they do love live action. In other markets you can see shifts towards animation or action, but Romanians they do love the Disney where they find animation, live action and movies. Last, but not least, is that phenomenal affinity in Romania for older Disney classics like “The Snow White”. The pre-school shows of Disney Junior are watched by the bigger part of the population, so here is more enjoying watching Disney Junior shows with the kids.

Rep: What is the situation of non-linear distribution of content, on what platforms and how much of Disney content is available on Internet and mobile?
M.B.: Our content is available on RomTelecom, SeeNow and Dolce TV. We also work with Orange. Disney branded and non-branded movies can be watched as soon as 4 months after theatrical window and Disney Movies on Demand has a librabry of approximately 75 titles per year. From July, ABC Studios On Demand will also be available. Then, of course there is our website, where you can watch quite a lot of promos or play games, we constantly update our website.
(MEDIA EXPRES)






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