HBO Central Europe

World Screen Weekly, December 7, 2006

YEAR IT LAUNCHED: 1991

OWNERSHIP: The ownership of HBO Central Europe is divided up between Home Box Office, Inc. (33 percent); Sony Pictures Television International/Columbia Tri-Star (33 percent); and Buena Vista International Television (33 percent).

REACH: HBO Central Europe now reaches 1.2 million homes in 11 countries, including Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Slovenia, Croatia and the most recent addition, Serbia and Montenegro.

DESCRIPTION: HBO Central Europe is offered as both a basic and premium channel and aims to be the region’s most respected and valued pay-TV service. It provides its viewers with the biggest Hollywood blockbusters and critically acclaimed original series, along with concerts and appointment special events. As a subscription service, HBO Central Europe is advertising free. Seven out of 10 subscribers are high-school or university educated, and 76 percent are aged between 18 and 49. More than half have subscribed to HBO for more than two years.

CEO: Linda Jensen

VP of New Business Development: John Rossiter

VP of Programming: Judit Minda

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: The very name, Home Box Office, says ‘movies’, and as John Rossiter, the VP of new business development explains, “a strong lineup of first-run major Hollywood offerings, including more $100-million plus box office hits than are available anywhere else. Each month we offer more than 120 theatrical motion pictures.” Other genres are also important to HBO Central Europe’s schedule. “Award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO original films and series as well as concerts and other special events, and daytime entertainment, great for the whole family,” says Rossiter.

HBO Central Europe provides four language feeds. Polish, which is provided with a voice-over narration, something common to Polish-language feeds in the region. A feed for Hungarian, Czech and Slovak, all dubbed in the local language, and subtitled feeds for Romania and Bulgaria and another for H.B.S. Adriatic.

WHAT’S NEW: Viewers of HBO Central Europe will be treated to a number of original series during the first three months of 2007. Big Love, the much awaited comedy-drama series, premieres in January. It features a Utah Mormon polygamist and successful businessman who faces a myriad of challenges in meeting the emotional, romantic and financial needs of his three wives, while dealing with their altogether seven kids, three adjoined houses, an ever-mounting avalanche of bills, not to mention the opening of his newest hardware store.

Also in January, Deadwood returns for its last season, along with the second season of Weeds and the second season of Extras, the comedy written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, creators of the Golden Globe-winning BBC comedy series The Office. Extras is the first co-production of HBO and the BBC.

February will mark the premiere of the FOX comedy series, War At Home, and in March the HBO original comedy Entourage will return for its second season.

Among the feature films coming up in the first quarter of 2007 are The Island, Bewitched, Stealth, The Dukes Of Hazzard, The Wedding Crashers, Casanova, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

HOT TOPIC: Undoubtedly the crucial development currently dominating the European Union’s broadcasting landscape is the arrival of digital and all the new opportunities it offers. The most recent example is Poland’s DTH platform, N, which will offer 55 channels, including nine new to Poland in seven different thematic packages starting at 4 euros per month. Developments such as these are driving HBO Central Europe’s development plans, as CEO Linda Jensen recently indicated. “HBO has led the way by providing multiplexes and additional channels targeted at the region’s digital future, and we are pleased to be collaborating with many regional distribution platforms in the testing of new technologies and services.”

WEBSITE: www.hbo-centraleurope.com