This report discusses the media sector in Poland, analyzing trends and developments through September 2013. The report also includes corporate news for firms such as EmiTel, Presspublica, Multikino, and Polskapresse.

The performance of the Polish media sector is linked to advertising spending. The Polish advertising market slid in the negative area in 2012, when it declined by around 5% y/y, following two consecutive years of positive annual performance. Dailies and magazines recorded the steepest plunge in advertising expenditure revenues last year, while the Internet segment was the only one that posted y/y growth.

The movement of advertising expenditure from traditional newspapers to the Internet continued in 2012 and is expected to follow the same trend in 2013, considering that newspaper advertisers can reach their targets more easily online and newspaper circulation is still under pressure, with slim prospects of witnessing a quick rebound.

As in other countries in the CEE region, the sector’s outlook relies to a large extent on the evolution of the overall economy and consumer confidence, with impact on advertising budgets. Accordingly, advertising expenditure is expected to start recovering in 2014, with the projected improvement of the overall economy.
As advertisers continued to limit their expenditure in all channels except the Internet, the advertising market steepened its decline in H1 2013 and, even though some improvement is expected in the second half of the year, full-year performance is projected to remain negative.

Key Points:

• In corporate news, Polish infrastructure operator EmiTel, acting also as a technical operator of terrestrial digital TV, acquired Info-TV-Operator, a radio diffusion-focused telecom company, from investment fund firm Magna Polonia.

• Presspublica Ltd changed its name to Gremi Media and adopted a new three-year strategy focusing on developing the segment of new media.

• UK-based cinema group Vue Entertainment signed an agreement to buy Polish multiplex operator Multikino from local media holding company ITI.

• Polish media group Polskapresse inked an agreement to buy local peer Media Regionalne from U.K.-based publisher Mecom Group for PLN 17mn (EUR 4.1mn).

• Although the Internet segment keeps gaining ground among advertisers, TV advertising remains the major channel, accounting for 49% of total advertising expenditure in 2012 and increasing its share to 49.5% in H1 2013.