Linda Jensen had some interesting things to say at IBC about HBO's strategy in Central Europe, which I thought were worth noting down. HBO's biggest CEE markets are Romania and Poland. Initially they just brought US content over into Europe, but now they’re making country specific versions of US formats e.g. In Deriva – a Romanian version of ‘In Treatment’. This corresponds to the strategy of many premium content producers – use great local content as a hook into imported fare An interesting characteristic of the business is that they have certain freedom to develop their own technology and product lines. They're launching HBO Go shortly – a broadband OTT product developed in-house, before the joint venture was bought out by HBO. This seems to fit with Linda's world view on content: “a subscribe once, use anywhere” model that is day and date independent and her view is that Europe is underdeveloped vs. US in online: eSell thru’: $580M US vs. $67M EU Online VOD: $100M US...
Thoughts on strategy in a Digital Economy