Polsat has revealed plans to turn the recently acquired TV Biznes channel into fully fledged round the clock news channel, similar to TVN24. Polsat has set aside a budget of several dozen million of zloty for the brand new newsroom and hiring journalist team. The refurbished channel would be launched shortly after the summer break.
Separately TV Puls, co-owned by News Corp., said it would upgrade its news programs to the similar quality standards, as at the main rival channels, such as TVP1, TVN and Polsat. The station reiterated plans for sharp improvement in its audience share via heavy investment in the programming.
Our view: It remains to be seen how successful TVN rivals would be in copying its strategy on news programming.
With regard to the outlook for rising programming outlays throughout the TV market, for the remainder of 2007, we believe, it would not harm TVN profit margins, given the cushion effect of the recent TV ads price hikes. We would expect a neutral market impact of the news.