SkyShowtime is a joint venture between Paramount and Comcast which is the parent company of NBCUniversal and Sky. Sarhan commented that the companies "were looking at the landscape and saw this huge opportunity to expand in parts of Europe and to do so together. SkyShowtime brings together the best of both companies. The service brings all of the theatrical releases, the new theatrical releases from Paramount, all of the new theatrical releases from Universal, those are Hollywood's two oldest studios, if you put the two of them together, which is what SkyShowtime's offering is. We have nearly 50% of Hollywood box office - that's more than any other streaming service. And in addition to that, they bring all of their great series, whether it's Yellowstone or Halo, Tulsa King. It's the year of Yellowstone, that's what we're calling it at SkyShowtime - it is the biggest show in the world right now. On top of that, we've been doing local originals. We were created for Europe, we are a European streaming service - we are committed to these markets.

In a way that other streaming services, they just happen to be here or happen to operate here. Hopefully it shows to the consumer that we're doing things that others aren't, that we're leaning into these markets because they're important and we also believe in partnerships - that's why we're here (at NEM Dubrovnik, ed). The platform is available in 19 languages - not every platform even makes itself available in terms of the interface in that many languages, we do localize a lot of the content and that's really costly."

Talking about the content strategy of the service, Sarhan noted that: "We've been ramping up very quickly -15 months is not a long time to do everything that we've accomplished. Last year was our first year live across all markets and we premiered 10 original series. I don't know of another streaming service that's done that. And we had original series for every one of our regions - we had a Polish production, we had a Czech original, we had a Swedish show, we had four originals in Spain. And we're on track to probably do about 8 to 10 shows this year as well."

When asked about the launch of SkyShowtime's ad tier - the streamer is the only one that has launched an ad option in all of its 22 territories - Sarhan said: "We just finished launching the standard plan last year and we said 'what's the next thing'? For us, it's about giving consumers more choice and flexibility, it's about starting with the consumer. And I think people are looking for more affordable options when it comes to streaming. People are talking about streaming fatigue and there are more services taking up wallet share. We launched with a headline price that was better than Netflix, better than HBO, better than Disney+. And we wanted to maintain price leadership and maintain more than price leadership, I would say maintain being good value for money. We are probably one of the only streamers that talk about value. And for us, it was incredibly important that if we were going to do this, we should do it for everybody. I don't know if anyone else will do what we've done. No one else to date has launched an ad plan across their entire footprint. And they'll tell you, well, the CPMs aren't great in Central and Eastern Europe - for us, it was more about giving people choice. Why wouldn't we give consumers here the same level of choice kind of options that we're giving to consumers in Spain or Poland or Sweden?"

Talking about SkyShowtime's Polish slate, Sarhan agreed that there are differences in terms of taste even within Poland itself. "We have two original series that were, one we just put into development but one is filming right now - it's called Sleboda and it takes place in the countryside outside of the city and it's just very different. Our first Polish series we released last year, Warszawianka, takes place in Warsaw. The city is almost a character in the show. It's a bit of a love letter to what it's like to live in Warsaw with this partying lifestyle. And I think we're going to have this other show that is going to be a big contrast about what it's like in the countryside - people are not as trusting and all of that. How you market those shows, how you bring them to market is really important. And I think it speaks to the fact that you want stuff that is going to appeal to a broad amount of the population, a big part of the audience. Things that people want to see characters they can relate to on the screen. Poland is very, very different, it's such a large market."

As far as smaller CEE markets are concerned, Sarhan said that: "In these smaller markets, you have to make the economics work and so that's why it comes back down to partnerships. You want to also make sure that you're filling a need that exists and that you're able to tell stories that aren't being told anywhere else. So there's a few elements, things that have to come together for it to make sense... We are never going to have as much local as a public broadcaster, that's by design. They're serving that part of the audience that wants a lot of local stuff. But we deliver on that big Hollywood content every single day." He also added that "you can't go in with a one size fits all strategy, you have to meet the consumer where he or she is. We have some of the highest active users in Central and Eastern Europe, we have people who are watching six or seven hours a day - that's fantastic, it's great for business."