According to the daily Rzeczpospolita, News Corp has recently increased its stake in TV Puls from 25% to 35%. Additionally the CEO of the station became Farrell Meisel, as stated by the daily, a manager with 30 years experience in media and responsible for success of Russian TV6. The station is now head hunting for experienced managers and journalists from competition, including TVN, Polsat and TVP. After the summer period TV Puls is expected to start a new programming framework and targets increasing its share in the audience from current 0.4% to 2% within the 12 months from its start. It will be helped by the January’s change of the licence from religious to universal type.
According to non-official information the station’s expenditures could be as high as PLN 100m.
Our view: We believe the news could have a negative trading impact on TVN. Given last year’s entrance of Murdoch to TV Puls we are not surprised by the news and we believe the target of 2% in 12 months is achievable. We view the expenditures of PLN 100m as substantial. However, we believe, the strengthening of TV Puls position will be gradual and should give time for TVN to work the defense strategy. Additionally, as TV Puls is likely to put emphasis rather on imported formats and programming, it is not likely, in our opinion, to materially undermine competitive position of TVN, which strategy is based mainly on own productions.