Coming to NATPE Budapest: Stella Litou, CEO RTL Croatia and Pro Plus
Stella Litou has been at the helm of RTL Croatia and Pro Plus for less than two years and leading the company to improved results in Croatia while preserving the solid leadership in Slovenia. In this exclusive interview, the CEO talks with Yako Molhov about the latest developments and results in the two markets, as well as the strong bet on streaming platform Voyo which leads the market in Slovenia and is among the fastest growers in Croatia.
Stella Litou is attending NATPE Budapest and will join the panel CEO Insights from CEE which will be held on Tuesday, June 25, at 14.00 in the Ballroom III. The CME Adria CEO is also a member of NATPE Budapest’s Advisory Board.
Stella Litou is attending NATPE Budapest and will join the panel CEO Insights from CEE which will be held on Tuesday, June 25, at 14.00 in the Ballroom III. The CME Adria CEO is also a member of NATPE Budapest’s Advisory Board.
Stella, RTL Croatia launched on April 30, 2004, with CME's flagship channel in the country celebrating its 20th anniversary. How are you marking this milestone and what have been RTL Croatia's major successes in the past year?
We celebrated our big anniversary with our commercial partners and advertisers, our internal and external colleagues through a series of events and of course with our viewers, through a series of special short and long form programs. It proved once again how strongly rooted our brand is in the life of the entire country.
The past year was exceptional. We made targeted changes in our primetime schedule that resulted in significant growth in audience and sales performance. We offered our viewers refreshed brands they love, introduced new shiny floor entertainment formats, new prime time fiction and an original true crime format. Our hard work paid off.
We already covered the importance of the Croatian market for CME in our previous interview, bearing in mind the fact that the company sold Nova TV in 2018 but returned to the country in 2022 by acquiring RTL Croatia. What is your strategy for becoming once again the market leader in the country?
The right mixture and higher investments in locally produced premium entertainment content and high-quality news on the main channel, RTL, as well as the new scheduling on RTL2, our entertainment channel, contributed to the growth of the entire group greatly closing the gap to our main competitor. Since the acquisition, we increased hours of local production by 35%, which speaks a lot for our commitment and growth aspirations and focused on optimization of our sales policy to better serve our partners. We plan to continue on this path.
What have been your best performing shows this spring and what are your plans for fall, will there be many brand new shows?
The year started, traditionally, with the broadcast of the European Handball Men’s Championship. This is a flagship event program for RTL, something that the Croatian audience love and audience share results proved it. The most watched game of this Championship was Croatia playing Austria achieved a staggering 54.8% in our target demo 18-59.
This spring, our news took center stage to deliver the double elections’ broadcast through our afternoon bulletin, our main news RTL Danas and late-night current affairs program RTL Direkt. We delivered exclusive interviews of the President and Prime Minister and introduced fact checking during the debates’ broadcast. Relevant, balanced, independent and trustworthy journalism became our compass. Our entertainment and reality offering was the pillar of our grid, with Come Dine With Me remaining one of the strongest formats of the main channel, as a lead in to our main news. Contributing to our group performance, RTL2 excelled in prime time with evergreen acquired comedy and procedural drama series brands, such as The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Friends and Criminal Minds. All that led to further closing the gap to our main competitor.
We are currently in full speed preparation of our Fall schedule, in production of a brand new primetime daily fiction for the main channel, accompanied by our pillar reality formats Farmer Wants a Wife and The Biggest Loser. Come Dine with Me returns with fresh episodes along with the second, much anticipated season of the shiny floor singing competition Superstar (Idols) and fresh episodes of our true crime original, Dossier Jarak.
With the TV industry facing many challenges in the past few years, have you planned any cuts in content budgets or on the contrary, have you planned to spend more money for new productions and in which genres?
As mentioned, we continue investing in local production heavily in both markets. News and local productions are the backbone of our business, therefore most of the allocated budget goes in that direction. We are in a growing path and support it through investment.
One of the latest trends in CEE is Czech broadcasters shooting their series in Croatia (both your sister net Nova and Prima aired series shot in the country), using the Adriatic as their backdrop. Did you cooperate with CME's Nova on their Hvar Police and do you expect more TV productions from CEE countries to be shot in Croatia and are you interested in such partnerships?
Croatia offers wonderful and diverse shooting locations, in combination with extremely skilled crew and facilities to support any high-quality production. Pro Plus filmed our mega successful new fiction Camping Royals at the Adriatic coast and we are constantly on the lookout for co-productions opportunities to provide diverse and exciting content to our viewers, in collaboration with our group or external parties.
According to the results of the latest IAB Croatia Online Media AdEx study which were just released, the total value of investments in online advertising in Croatia in 2023 reached 133.000.000 euros and based on the collected data, a continued growth of 13% is expected in 2024. What are the figures and forecasts for the TV market, will 2024 be a good year for RTL Croatia in terms of ad revenues?
So far so good. We expect slight organic growth in Croatia, but the commercial sector also faces challenges through high inflation and lack of capacity. Our main goal is to remain a trendsetter and the partner of choice in the market, giving different possibilities and tailor-made offerings to our advertisers, increasing value for money for their budget placement.
You are responsible for CME's operations in Slovenia and Croatia. What are the synergies between the two countries, you previously mentioned content production, VOD among others - how many joint projects do the two countries have in both areas?
Pro Plus and RTL Croatia collaborate effectively, with teams that are eager to contribute to the growth and profitability for both companies and we are actively engaged in multiple projects. Our cooperation is broad: content production, broadcasting technology and video on demand platform operations and knowjki21ledge exchange across the board. The goal is to leverage the strengths of both companies aiming to foster creative and financial growth.
In Slovenia, Pro Plus is the undisputed leader in the local media market, with excellent results across all outlets - traditional TV, online portals, and especially SVOD with VOYO. What are your latest results for the spring TV season?
This spring was incredibly successful for Pro Plus, and especially POP TV as we continue to be the undisputed first choice in the Slovenian media landscape. Our TV channels uphold their leadership, capturing impressive shares in both prime time and all day, with significant increases versus previous year. We introduced a fresh original daily local series, Camping Royals (aka Hidden in Paradise, Skrito v raju), which achieved a remarkable 39% viewership share, exceeding our expectations and changing viewing habits for the market bringing new viewers to our media. Home Makeover excelled in its new Sunday night slot with an impressive 44% share, MasterChef Slovenia became a daily unmissable habit with four episodes per week, accompanied by Food Truck, Kid Cooks Slovenia and special news programs such as our high- profile News Town Hall. This spring POP TV had everything!
POP TV’s 24UR continues to be the most-watched news show in the country, consistently attracting an average share of 42%. Additionally, Kanal A, our second main channel, offers the best possible complementary schedule, with our daily news brand Svet, and continues to draw huge audiences through our sports programming with Champions League, Europa League, and MotoGP. This year, we further expanded our sports offerings by including basketball from the ABA League, handball matches, and NBA games, which collectively gather an impressive 20% viewership share. All in all, it was a very encouraging start of the year.
What were your most-popular programs, and have you set up your plans for fall, what will Slovenian viewers see on Pro Plus?
Among the highlights of POP TV, the much-loved reality show The Farm will make its return with a refreshed new season. Additionally, we will continue to support new entrepreneurs through the upcoming season of Restart Slovenia and celebrate a significant milestone with the 10th season of Slovenia’s Got Talent. The new seasons of The Kitchen and The Teacher will complete the autumn schedule of POP TV, which will remain focused on broad and diverse family viewing.
We are gearing up for a sport-packed summer on Kanal A featuring broadcasts of Slovenian Volleyball matches, Giro d'Italia highlights, setting the stage for an autumn rich with local productions on our main channel and the comeback of Champions League in Fall.
What are your forecasts for the ad market in Slovenia?
The TV market in Slovenia is both mature and stable. Within it, we offer unparalleled reach and delivers the KPI efficiency that clients seek. Our goal in Slovenia is to remain the first choice for advertisers and expect stable TV ad revenues, with our tailor-made advertising solutions. We believe there are new sales opportunities within our digital assets, which we intend to explore and assure the total growth of advertising revenues.
Is CME exploring new revenue models in both countries? Have you looked into FAST, a model which was initially considered not suitable for the CEE market due to various reasons but has started to gain popularity in some territories?
We looked at FAST, but we don’t see it as an option at this point.
During our last talk in May 2023, you exclusively announced the rebranding of your Croatian streaming service Play into Voyo. What were the main steps during this process and how would you rate Voyo's current position on the streaming market in Croatia?
I would say that great collaboration between the Pro Plus and RTL teams was one of the main reasons why we had successful launch of the platform in Croatia. Day to day exchange of information, ideas and experience with the constant support of the colleagues from our headquarters and Czech operation made work easier. Voyo in Croatia stands proudly next to the global streamers in awareness, has its loyal subscribers with a growing base. With its unique proposition of offering locally produced content 24hours before broadcast on linear channel, Voyo sets new ways of content consumption in the country. In due course, you will hear more from us regarding original content offering and we will continuously develop our service with high focus to further establish it as the leading local platform of choice.
Earlier this year CME announced a major milestone for Voyo - over 1 million subs, with the highest growth in Czechia, Slovakia (together over 800.000 subs) and Slovenia. Could you provide more info about the number of subscribers for Croatia and Slovenia and how Voyo fares against its competing streaming services, what is the latest data? Do you consider international streamers like Netflix, Disney+; etc. your direct competitors?
VOYO in both countries is a success story. What sets VOYO apart from other SVOD’s is local, original content. In Slovenia, we currently have more than 180.000 subscribers. It is the most popular SVOD in the country. It offers more than 15.000 hours of content in Slovenian or with Slovenian subtitles, which can be watched anywhere, anytime. In Slovenia almost 90% of our users visit us weekly, which is impressive. In Croatia, having in mind that the platform is being available to subscribers for less than a year, it has yielded a fantastic result in brand awareness of 85%. Voyo Croatia is a growth story in all aspects: with now more than 10.000 hours of content, the platform is offered on 35% of smart TVs and it tripled the number of subscribes since the launch.
CME invests heavily into original content for Voyo in Czechia and Slovakia, with as many as 25 new projects right now. What about Slovenia and Croatia, how many original programs do you produce for the two countries and what is the budget for Voyo originals for the two countries?
Over the years, VOYO Slovenia has launched 22 VOYO originals. This year, we unveiled the fifth and final season of Horna Dolna, and in May, we released the highly anticipated ninth season of the popular series The Kitchen. By year's end, we plan to introduce one more entirely new VOYO original. Moreover, our efforts continue as we have multiple new projects in development, with plans to begin production in the coming year. In Croatia, we are in preproduction of the first two original reality formats that will be offered to our subscribers in the second half of the year. One of those is special sports reality about MMA fighters, whose tournaments are very popular among VOYO subscribers. We are also working on developing original fiction and informative shows.
Recently Voyo in Romania started offering the must-carry channels in the country. What is the situation in other CME territories, can Voyo subscribers in Slovenia and Croatia expect a similar step and stream non-CME channels?
In Croatia, as part of the must-offer regime we have also recently included main commercial channels of our competitors within the Voyo offering.
Are you planning to launch new cable channels in the two territories?
We now have a rounded channel portfolio in both Slovenia and Croatia. We offer varied and high-value content, local, regional, and international but we continue to monitor viewers’ needs and needs of distribution partners and will be looking for ways to strengthen our offering in the future.
You are on the Advisory Board of NATPE Budapest 2024 and you are among the panelists at the event. What will be the main topics of interest and challenges for the CEE TV market that you will be addressing during the market event?
I am delighted to be part of and to contribute to such an important event for the region. We will focus on TV creative trends, consumption trends, and opportunities for cross country collaborations. We operate in a high competition, fast moving and demanding region, with audiences always expecting more premium, long form local original content and NATPE is the perfect forum for knowledge exchanging and networking.
We celebrated our big anniversary with our commercial partners and advertisers, our internal and external colleagues through a series of events and of course with our viewers, through a series of special short and long form programs. It proved once again how strongly rooted our brand is in the life of the entire country.
The past year was exceptional. We made targeted changes in our primetime schedule that resulted in significant growth in audience and sales performance. We offered our viewers refreshed brands they love, introduced new shiny floor entertainment formats, new prime time fiction and an original true crime format. Our hard work paid off.
We already covered the importance of the Croatian market for CME in our previous interview, bearing in mind the fact that the company sold Nova TV in 2018 but returned to the country in 2022 by acquiring RTL Croatia. What is your strategy for becoming once again the market leader in the country?
The right mixture and higher investments in locally produced premium entertainment content and high-quality news on the main channel, RTL, as well as the new scheduling on RTL2, our entertainment channel, contributed to the growth of the entire group greatly closing the gap to our main competitor. Since the acquisition, we increased hours of local production by 35%, which speaks a lot for our commitment and growth aspirations and focused on optimization of our sales policy to better serve our partners. We plan to continue on this path.
What have been your best performing shows this spring and what are your plans for fall, will there be many brand new shows?
The year started, traditionally, with the broadcast of the European Handball Men’s Championship. This is a flagship event program for RTL, something that the Croatian audience love and audience share results proved it. The most watched game of this Championship was Croatia playing Austria achieved a staggering 54.8% in our target demo 18-59.
This spring, our news took center stage to deliver the double elections’ broadcast through our afternoon bulletin, our main news RTL Danas and late-night current affairs program RTL Direkt. We delivered exclusive interviews of the President and Prime Minister and introduced fact checking during the debates’ broadcast. Relevant, balanced, independent and trustworthy journalism became our compass. Our entertainment and reality offering was the pillar of our grid, with Come Dine With Me remaining one of the strongest formats of the main channel, as a lead in to our main news. Contributing to our group performance, RTL2 excelled in prime time with evergreen acquired comedy and procedural drama series brands, such as The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Friends and Criminal Minds. All that led to further closing the gap to our main competitor.
We are currently in full speed preparation of our Fall schedule, in production of a brand new primetime daily fiction for the main channel, accompanied by our pillar reality formats Farmer Wants a Wife and The Biggest Loser. Come Dine with Me returns with fresh episodes along with the second, much anticipated season of the shiny floor singing competition Superstar (Idols) and fresh episodes of our true crime original, Dossier Jarak.
24 UR
With the TV industry facing many challenges in the past few years, have you planned any cuts in content budgets or on the contrary, have you planned to spend more money for new productions and in which genres?
As mentioned, we continue investing in local production heavily in both markets. News and local productions are the backbone of our business, therefore most of the allocated budget goes in that direction. We are in a growing path and support it through investment.
One of the latest trends in CEE is Czech broadcasters shooting their series in Croatia (both your sister net Nova and Prima aired series shot in the country), using the Adriatic as their backdrop. Did you cooperate with CME's Nova on their Hvar Police and do you expect more TV productions from CEE countries to be shot in Croatia and are you interested in such partnerships?
Croatia offers wonderful and diverse shooting locations, in combination with extremely skilled crew and facilities to support any high-quality production. Pro Plus filmed our mega successful new fiction Camping Royals at the Adriatic coast and we are constantly on the lookout for co-productions opportunities to provide diverse and exciting content to our viewers, in collaboration with our group or external parties.
According to the results of the latest IAB Croatia Online Media AdEx study which were just released, the total value of investments in online advertising in Croatia in 2023 reached 133.000.000 euros and based on the collected data, a continued growth of 13% is expected in 2024. What are the figures and forecasts for the TV market, will 2024 be a good year for RTL Croatia in terms of ad revenues?
So far so good. We expect slight organic growth in Croatia, but the commercial sector also faces challenges through high inflation and lack of capacity. Our main goal is to remain a trendsetter and the partner of choice in the market, giving different possibilities and tailor-made offerings to our advertisers, increasing value for money for their budget placement.
You are responsible for CME's operations in Slovenia and Croatia. What are the synergies between the two countries, you previously mentioned content production, VOD among others - how many joint projects do the two countries have in both areas?
Pro Plus and RTL Croatia collaborate effectively, with teams that are eager to contribute to the growth and profitability for both companies and we are actively engaged in multiple projects. Our cooperation is broad: content production, broadcasting technology and video on demand platform operations and knowjki21ledge exchange across the board. The goal is to leverage the strengths of both companies aiming to foster creative and financial growth.
In Slovenia, Pro Plus is the undisputed leader in the local media market, with excellent results across all outlets - traditional TV, online portals, and especially SVOD with VOYO. What are your latest results for the spring TV season?
This spring was incredibly successful for Pro Plus, and especially POP TV as we continue to be the undisputed first choice in the Slovenian media landscape. Our TV channels uphold their leadership, capturing impressive shares in both prime time and all day, with significant increases versus previous year. We introduced a fresh original daily local series, Camping Royals (aka Hidden in Paradise, Skrito v raju), which achieved a remarkable 39% viewership share, exceeding our expectations and changing viewing habits for the market bringing new viewers to our media. Home Makeover excelled in its new Sunday night slot with an impressive 44% share, MasterChef Slovenia became a daily unmissable habit with four episodes per week, accompanied by Food Truck, Kid Cooks Slovenia and special news programs such as our high- profile News Town Hall. This spring POP TV had everything!
POP TV’s 24UR continues to be the most-watched news show in the country, consistently attracting an average share of 42%. Additionally, Kanal A, our second main channel, offers the best possible complementary schedule, with our daily news brand Svet, and continues to draw huge audiences through our sports programming with Champions League, Europa League, and MotoGP. This year, we further expanded our sports offerings by including basketball from the ABA League, handball matches, and NBA games, which collectively gather an impressive 20% viewership share. All in all, it was a very encouraging start of the year.
Camping Royals
What were your most-popular programs, and have you set up your plans for fall, what will Slovenian viewers see on Pro Plus?
Among the highlights of POP TV, the much-loved reality show The Farm will make its return with a refreshed new season. Additionally, we will continue to support new entrepreneurs through the upcoming season of Restart Slovenia and celebrate a significant milestone with the 10th season of Slovenia’s Got Talent. The new seasons of The Kitchen and The Teacher will complete the autumn schedule of POP TV, which will remain focused on broad and diverse family viewing.
We are gearing up for a sport-packed summer on Kanal A featuring broadcasts of Slovenian Volleyball matches, Giro d'Italia highlights, setting the stage for an autumn rich with local productions on our main channel and the comeback of Champions League in Fall.
What are your forecasts for the ad market in Slovenia?
The TV market in Slovenia is both mature and stable. Within it, we offer unparalleled reach and delivers the KPI efficiency that clients seek. Our goal in Slovenia is to remain the first choice for advertisers and expect stable TV ad revenues, with our tailor-made advertising solutions. We believe there are new sales opportunities within our digital assets, which we intend to explore and assure the total growth of advertising revenues.
Is CME exploring new revenue models in both countries? Have you looked into FAST, a model which was initially considered not suitable for the CEE market due to various reasons but has started to gain popularity in some territories?
We looked at FAST, but we don’t see it as an option at this point.
During our last talk in May 2023, you exclusively announced the rebranding of your Croatian streaming service Play into Voyo. What were the main steps during this process and how would you rate Voyo's current position on the streaming market in Croatia?
I would say that great collaboration between the Pro Plus and RTL teams was one of the main reasons why we had successful launch of the platform in Croatia. Day to day exchange of information, ideas and experience with the constant support of the colleagues from our headquarters and Czech operation made work easier. Voyo in Croatia stands proudly next to the global streamers in awareness, has its loyal subscribers with a growing base. With its unique proposition of offering locally produced content 24hours before broadcast on linear channel, Voyo sets new ways of content consumption in the country. In due course, you will hear more from us regarding original content offering and we will continuously develop our service with high focus to further establish it as the leading local platform of choice.
Earlier this year CME announced a major milestone for Voyo - over 1 million subs, with the highest growth in Czechia, Slovakia (together over 800.000 subs) and Slovenia. Could you provide more info about the number of subscribers for Croatia and Slovenia and how Voyo fares against its competing streaming services, what is the latest data? Do you consider international streamers like Netflix, Disney+; etc. your direct competitors?
VOYO in both countries is a success story. What sets VOYO apart from other SVOD’s is local, original content. In Slovenia, we currently have more than 180.000 subscribers. It is the most popular SVOD in the country. It offers more than 15.000 hours of content in Slovenian or with Slovenian subtitles, which can be watched anywhere, anytime. In Slovenia almost 90% of our users visit us weekly, which is impressive. In Croatia, having in mind that the platform is being available to subscribers for less than a year, it has yielded a fantastic result in brand awareness of 85%. Voyo Croatia is a growth story in all aspects: with now more than 10.000 hours of content, the platform is offered on 35% of smart TVs and it tripled the number of subscribes since the launch.
CME invests heavily into original content for Voyo in Czechia and Slovakia, with as many as 25 new projects right now. What about Slovenia and Croatia, how many original programs do you produce for the two countries and what is the budget for Voyo originals for the two countries?
Over the years, VOYO Slovenia has launched 22 VOYO originals. This year, we unveiled the fifth and final season of Horna Dolna, and in May, we released the highly anticipated ninth season of the popular series The Kitchen. By year's end, we plan to introduce one more entirely new VOYO original. Moreover, our efforts continue as we have multiple new projects in development, with plans to begin production in the coming year. In Croatia, we are in preproduction of the first two original reality formats that will be offered to our subscribers in the second half of the year. One of those is special sports reality about MMA fighters, whose tournaments are very popular among VOYO subscribers. We are also working on developing original fiction and informative shows.
Superstar
Recently Voyo in Romania started offering the must-carry channels in the country. What is the situation in other CME territories, can Voyo subscribers in Slovenia and Croatia expect a similar step and stream non-CME channels?
In Croatia, as part of the must-offer regime we have also recently included main commercial channels of our competitors within the Voyo offering.
Are you planning to launch new cable channels in the two territories?
We now have a rounded channel portfolio in both Slovenia and Croatia. We offer varied and high-value content, local, regional, and international but we continue to monitor viewers’ needs and needs of distribution partners and will be looking for ways to strengthen our offering in the future.
You are on the Advisory Board of NATPE Budapest 2024 and you are among the panelists at the event. What will be the main topics of interest and challenges for the CEE TV market that you will be addressing during the market event?
I am delighted to be part of and to contribute to such an important event for the region. We will focus on TV creative trends, consumption trends, and opportunities for cross country collaborations. We operate in a high competition, fast moving and demanding region, with audiences always expecting more premium, long form local original content and NATPE is the perfect forum for knowledge exchanging and networking.
