Are homegrown CEE's OTT about to reach their finest hour?

Central European OTT platforms have experienced rapid growth in recent quarters, especially a handful of homegrown services that have recently rebranded their interfaces or reshaped their strategies and business models to attract new users. A shift is starting in the region, where global OTT players like Netflix, HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video are being increasingly challenged. In some markets, local players have even outgrown them in volume. So how can we explain the recent successes of Central European OTT platforms, and which strategies are they adopting going forward? Regional and global platforms’ volumes of OTT subscribers in CEE markets were close to one another up until 2021, with respectively 6,9 million subscribers and 7,1 million for American streaming services. In 2022, the consecutive launches of HBO Max and Disney+ led to an influx of almost 2 million subscribers for the latter group. But still, 2021 has marked the beginning of a new era for Central European streaming services, paving the way for significant new launches and strategic changes to better address local audiences’ needs. In March, Latvian incumbent Tet relaunched its OTT service under a new name, Tet+, which led to the service reaching a 35% market share by the end of the same year. In September, Polsat relaunched its OTT products into a duet between Polsat Box and Polsat Box Go, to replace former services ipla and Polsat Go. This trend seems to have even accelerated in 2023 as local content owners acknowledge that having a strong foothold in the OTT market has become a necessary step. This was concretized with the successive launches of RTL+ and TV2 Play Premium in Hungary earlier this year, along with Prima in Czechia which launched a new OTT platform called Prima+.   Eon TV, Go3 and Voyo will grow faster than Netflix in CEE markets this year Some of those homegrown OTT services are growing way faster locally than their global competitors. For instance, Go3, the OTT streaming service launched in December 2019 by regional broadcaster TV3, are expected to the bar of half a million subscribers this year, while Netflix and Amazon Prime which reached just over 200k subscribers combined across the three countries at the end of last year. This makes Go3 the leading OTT service in the region, and its popularity can largely be attributed to its focus on local content and its affordable pricing.   Indeed the price gap between regional platforms and global services in Central Europe remains significant and greatly impacts audiences’ choices and streaming habits. As an example, Go3's basic plan costs €3.99 per month, while Netflix's basic plan stands at €7.99 per month in the Baltics. The shift towards OTT also impacts legacy...