Pay TV in Ukraine: what the conference was about

On September 20, at the 4^th Pay TV in Ukraine conference held in the course of KYIV MEDIA WEEK 2017 international media forum two panel discussions dedicated to the current situation at pay TV market and its future prospects took place. A lot of issues were raised, so we’d like to share the conclusions (most) speakers have come to.

Firstly, one cannot deny the success of IPTV and OTT, and they should be measured, with the advertising also measured against some scale. Secondly, TV channels which can be encoded in the future haven’t yet decided whether advertising will stay in their content – in the opinion of Sergey Sozanovsky, co-founder of FILM.UA Group, there shouldn’t be any ad breaks.

Experts have agreed that reducing the amount of free TV channels for the growth of TV advertising market in Ukraine is pointless. Both components are not directly connected to each other; the volume of financing from advertisers depends on the consumers’ purchasing power and not on the wish of TV channels to place more advertising and at a higher price.

Finally, product placement could compensate expenses still in the content production stage, but it is extremely hard in the current situation. It might work only with the investments of advertisers into the projects with successful history, which have already become brands.