Why Netflix is a turn-off for eastern Europe

Netflix has just launched season four of its hit show Orange is the New Black but TV viewers from eastern Europe aren’t watching.

According to Christoph Mainusch, CEO of Central Europe Media Enterprises, the largest broadcaster in central and eastern Europe, “90 percent of TV viewing (in the region) is still linear.”

While Netflix, Amazon and other digital services have disrupted TV markets across America and western Europe, they are proving less successful in converting viewers in eastern Europe. The reason? TV stations have been able to hold off international competition by offering content targeted at local audiences in their own languages.

And things look likely to stay that way for some time. Speaking at the New Europe Market 2016 TV conference in Dubrovnik, Mainusch noted that, in the six Eastern European countries where CME operates, total TV usage has actually gone up in the past 10 years, to 244 minutes a day, from 216 minutes, a 13 percent jump. “Linear TV,” he said, “is stronger than ever.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter