FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS WILL DETERMINE WHETHER—AND FOR HOW LONG—NOVA REMAINS ON TERRESTRIAL TV

Nova Media Group closely monitors technological developments and the market shares of individual television platforms. It reviews the situation every six months. In an interview with MediaGuru.cz, TV Nova CEO Daniel Grunt also discusses the current position of the Oneplay service and its near-term development.

Terrestrial television broadcasting remains an important part of the distribution strategy for Nova Group, although its significance has been declining over the long term. TV Nova CEO Daniel Grunt told MediaGuru.cz that the company continuously evaluates developments in the share of terrestrial distribution and will use this as the basis for deciding on any future changes. At present, Nova has no plans to change either its distribution model or the way its Oneplay streaming service operates. Instead, it intends to continue developing Oneplay primarily through content, technological improvements and enhancements to the user experience. At the same time, Grunt acknowledges that if the importance of free-to-air broadcasting continues to decline, new approaches to content may also become an option in the future. “Everything will depend on how quickly the importance of terrestrial broadcasting declines,” he says.

Can you disclose how long your distribution agreement with České Radiokomunikace for broadcasting your channels terrestrially runs for? Unless it is confidential, how long is the agreement that came into effect sometime in 2020 or 2021?

I’m afraid that is commercially confidential, so I can’t comment on it.

I’m asking because you will certainly have noticed the major distribution change that your direct competitor, Prima Group, is planning. Does Nova have a plan for how terrestrial broadcasting will develop going forward?

The plan is very simple. It depends on the weight terrestrial broadcasting carries as a major source of revenue within our distribution mix. At the moment, it is still significant, accounting for around 35 to 36%. Television advertising also continues to be a crucial source of revenue for us. Its share is gradually declining, but it still stands at around 50%. If its importance were to begin declining significantly—which I don’t think will happen—we would of course reassess the situation. At present, however, we see no reason to make any changes.

So this is not something you expect to have to address in the next few years. I’m also asking because 2030 is often mentioned as a milestone for the future of terrestrial broadcasting, as that is when the frequencies allocated by the Czech Telecommunications Office to nationwide networks are due to expire. So nothing will change before then?

I can’t guarantee that. As I said, everything will depend on how quickly the importance of terrestrial broadcasting declines. Just a few years ago, it accounted for more than 50%; today, if I remember correctly, it is around 35%. That is a relatively rapid decline. We therefore review the situation every six months and adjust our strategy accordingly. So we cannot say that anything is guaranteed for the next five or six years. Everything will depend on how strong terrestrial broadcasting remains.

And you still cannot disclose the year until which the current agreement with České Radiokomunikace remains in force?

I can’t.

Nova is strong in both pillars, free-to-air and premium content. Are you considering moving some free content behind a paywall at some point in the future?

That is one of the potential scenarios and, as I said at the beginning, it will all depend on how the decline in terrestrial distribution develops going forward.

Moving some free content behind a paywall is one of the possible scenarios for the future. The key factor, however, will be the further development of terrestrial distribution and the pace of its decline.

As far as Oneplay is concerned, its offering has long since expanded beyond early releases of Nova’s original titles and Oneplay Originals, with some fairly attractive acquisitions now appearing on the service as well.

A lot of that has to do with the strength of the Oneplay subscriber base itself. We are the largest streaming service in the Czech Republic, so we need to offer the broadest and most diverse range of content possible and appeal to as many target groups as we can. That is the only way we can continue to grow. Our goal remains to bring Czech viewers the very best content, whether that means Czech productions or acquired titles selected specifically with Czech audiences in mind.

What are your customer satisfaction surveys currently telling you? How do customers perceive Oneplay in 2026, and what do they expect from it?

I have to say that in the 15 months since Oneplay launched in March 2025, perceptions of the brand have changed dramatically. The beginning was challenging, of course. Users of both Voyo and O2 TV moved from services they were familiar with to a new platform with a new user interface and a new brand. On top of that, the price increased. But the situation began to turn around quickly. What helped us above all was the content we offer on Oneplay and the way we present it to users. We try to make it easier for them to navigate the service and help them find exactly what is relevant to them. At this point, Oneplay’s NPS is already approaching the levels achieved by Voyo, which was a much-loved brand (NPS = Net Promoter Score, a metric indicating how well regarded a service is based on customers’ willingness to recommend it, editor’s note.).

What does that score tell you in practical terms?

NPS tells us how likely you are to recommend a particular service or product to people you know. It is measured on a scale from 0 to 10, with the resulting score ranging from minus 100 to plus 100. Scores of 9 and 10 are positive, 7 and 8 are neutral, while scores of 6 or below count negatively. So it is a fairly strict metric. We are currently achieving strongly positive scores.

Are you considering offering Oneplay to operators as part of a bundled package, as Netflix, Disney+ or HBO Max do, for example?

We are not considering changing the distribution model. At present, Oneplay has two operators. Nova operates the so-called B2C customer base, meaning customers who subscribe directly, while O2 serves customers of O2 services. So we have these two operators, and we do not plan to change that.

Your competitor Prima announced an agreement with BBC Studios on 10 August that will allow it, as well as T-Mobile, to offer the BBC Player service in the Czech Republic. Are there any companies, whether global players or multinational groups, with which you are considering taking a similar approach, or are you pursuing a different path?

There is a broad range of potential partners we are considering. We are in talks with some of them, we have ended discussions with others, and we continuously assess further opportunities. It always depends on the specific commercial terms and whether a particular partnership makes sense for us. Discussions are therefore ongoing, but at this point we have not concluded any agreement.

Is there anything that is already close to being finalised?

Not at this point.

Are you planning any technological upgrades for Oneplay or anything else that would affect how the service operates going forward? I mean features such as multilingual audio, subtitles and so on.

That particular feature has actually been available on Oneplay since launch, although it was not available on Voyo. The reason it is not available for all content has to do with licensing rights and content suppliers. A large proportion of the titles on Oneplay are still governed by contractual terms negotiated back in the Voyo era, when multilingual audio, for example, was not included in the agreement. Or the supplier simply does not have additional language versions available. We therefore have to renegotiate these terms gradually and then add the relevant audio tracks or subtitles.

And will there be any other technological upgrades?

Technological upgrades are happening continuously; it is a never-ending process. As far as changes that customers will actually see are concerned, we will be improving the user interface during the second half of the year. That will be one of the most significant visible changes.

What exactly does that mean? What will be changing?

We will be redesigning the home page to make it even cleaner and easier to navigate, so viewers can find what they are looking for more easily. One of the key issues for us—and something we see as one of the biggest problems facing the entire industry—is that viewers find it very difficult to navigate the sheer amount of content available. They are overwhelmed by choice. At Oneplay, we therefore want to do everything we can to make choosing content as easy as possible. That means improving both the user interface and the recommendation algorithm, which we develop and refine ourselves. The aim is to reduce the amount of time viewers need to decide what they want to watch.

Source: mediaguru.cz