08-03-2010

Poland embraces VOD

By Katarzyna Grynienko
    Poland's Grupa Onet drew 500,000 viewers in its first three days of VOD service with an offering that included five of the most popular titles available online.

    The service was launched by Onet.pl, one of the most popular internet portals in Poland with an average monthly 12.7 million of users. According to Megapanel PBI/Gemius research, the average monthly time spent by the users on Onet.pl in November 2009 was 66.6 million hours.

    VOD was first offered in February 2008 by Internet cinema iplex.pl, offering long and short features for the on-line audience, Grupa Onet (www.ofirmie.onet.pl), a leading Polish New Media company and a part of TVN S.A. Group (www.investor.tvn.pl), is exploring different possibilities of VOD.

    "We offer access to a great number of audiovisual materials from the TVN library, such as films, entertainment programs, sports and even television series before their official premiere as well as Warner Bros productions. All the programs are free for the viewers, but the ones labeled as 'premium' are paid for by sponsors and preceded or interrupted by commercials. This is the first truly synergistic project of our group," said Łukasz Wejchert, president of Onet and vice president of TVN Group.