Bartosz Witak, General Manager, BBC Studios CEE: "We Are All-in for The Game"
During last month's NEM Dubrovnik the newly appointed GM for Central and Eastern Europe at BBC Studios Bartosz Witak shared his vision for the company in the region during a keynote. He provided insights into the evolving media landscape, and elaborated on the strategies driving the company’s success, including BBC's strategy for co-productions in the region, with the company planning to focus more on non-scripted.
Bartosz Witak, General Manager, BBC Studios CEE
In February this year BBC Studios announced the appointment of Bartosz Witak as the General Manager for the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region. With a mandate to oversee and manage the P&L, Bartosz brings over two decades of invaluable experience to drive growth and innovation in this dynamic market. Bartosz’s impressive career includes a pivotal role as the Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe and Israel during his sixteen-year tenure at ViacomCBS. Leading great teams of experts across multiple offices, including Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Tel Aviv, and London, he played a key role in the company’s remarkable success, contributing to consistent year-over-year revenue growth. Following his impactful time at ViacomCBS, Bartosz transitioned into the role of Senior Business Adviser, providing valuable insights and strategic direction to international companies and investors in the media industry over the last four years. His focus on identifying growth opportunities and optimizing operations has further solidified his reputation as a respected industry executive.
The senior executive commented that "when I was in my consulting role after almost two decades with first Viacom, then Viacom CBS and now Paramount Global, I asked myself what next can be exciting?.. BBC offered me a job - the brand is there, the value, the quality, the reputation is there... It can be considered a new chapter for us, because as much as the team is great and a lot of fundamental stuff has been already done, I think this is not yet what we think about BBC. In a sense, that deserves more... and that more, for us, is pretty much more presence, more 'umbrella' and 'all-in' type of a game for us, portfolio-wise. Not only portfolio of channels, but also portfolio of products, portfolio of divisions, you name it. There are channels, podcasts, audio services, there is consumer product, there is content production, there are lots, lots of other initiatives and areas of opportunities. From now on, we have that covered at one umbrella for all the region and we're all-in for the game."
When asked about BBC Studios' co-production strategy for the region, Witak shared that he and his team are working "on a five, seven-year plan, what's exciting on our side is the fact that we've got the opportunity to define the new pillars for us, for what's to come." The exec admitted that when it comes to content production in the region "it's something that it doesn't feel right, that is not present here for BBC Studios to the extent that we would like that to be, both in terms of covering topics, exploring opportunities, storytelling elements - all of that. In Zagreb (NEM Zagreb which is scheduled for December 10-12, ed.) I hope we'll be able to talk about more."
BBC Studios plans to focus more on non-scripted in the CEE region. "The thing is that there is a reason why drama for international purposes is developing more in, let's say, Western countries and what is the last couple of years hype - Scandinavia and Benelux because it's a home for crime mostly, not as violence on the streets, but as a content IP development hub. So, drama will be extremely difficult because whoever tried here in this part of the world to send something outside, it's not necessarily super successful - it's way more successful here, pan-regionally, locally, with either local incumbents or smart, tiny studios. But what works, definitely, and this is what we would like to test the waters first is the non-scripted area - factual, documentaries, it is much better positioned to travel outside. What would help is also us having the ambition to chip in to our global content library way more from this part of the world and this is how we're going to approach it as a first step - to go and find the right partners and partnerships to produce, co-produce, develop IP, different types of models, different types of partnerships that we can have and arrangements with people from us having content slate and giving that for localization here or completely the other way around, someone pitching a great idea and us producing that. We have to just find a flexible business model that would make us partners in that crime, not necessarily only crime content."
With regards to BBC Studios' presence and distribution strategy in the region, Witak commented that "when you look at the media landscape across CEE, in Poland the presence of BBC is quite okayish. There are always things that you can do more. Across other territories, it varies more. In Czech and Slovakia: a couple of days ago, we launched BBC First channel with our great partners - in Czechia O2 and T-Mobile and in Slovakia with Slovak Telekom. So, a great new channel is already there. Previously, we were on VOD services there, with BBC Earth and BBC First content... We know that we are missing eyeballs that will help us to actually recognize BBC content and quality of the content delivered to the audience way more. When we stick to tiny packages and not with everyone yet, we just limit ourselves with opportunity to tell the stories. And now going into the region and trying to produce and co-produce with our partners in the region, that would deserve these eyeballs even more because that would be a really regional effort going forward on the top of all these thousands of hours that we are providing from our global library."
Witak also underlined the fact that "BBC Studios in CEE will be evolving and we are changing our business model in order to address the requirements of a more extended number of eyeballs looking at us, at what we do, what we are delivering to the audience and our partners because, depending on from which perspective you are looking at the value chain model, sometimes you are like an AdSense client, sometimes you are a cable satellite mobile operator, sometimes just an OTT service, sometimes streaming. Our flexibility needs to be set out and loud here. We will be way more flexible going forward because that's the way from my experience in this part of the world sometimes and probably the key to success."
The exec also talked about streaming in the region: "we can follow all these statistics that are telling us on a daily basis: it's all great across Central Eastern Europe because linear TV is going to stay here much longer than other parts of the world. Expected number of pay TV households by 2028, 2029, 2030 is going to be 40, 45 million tops. So still, we are having some time to address the changing environment because one might say, okay, this is just a statistic which says this is pay TV households, this is the streaming households, we're going to beat them by 2030. But what it really means for us? What we don't have yet with BBC player because currently we are offering that in so-called affiliate model, which is the ingest to existing OTT platforms of our great partners, whether it's cable, satellite or mobile, doesn't really matter for us as long as we cooperate. But what we are missing is a standalone, more like app solution or something that could be offered. I would like to offer that in some sort of partnership in the market that would help us to bundle that to make it more attractive. But at the same time, let us learn, let us go through this part (a test phase, ed), otherwise we'll be all guessing."
The senior executive commented that "when I was in my consulting role after almost two decades with first Viacom, then Viacom CBS and now Paramount Global, I asked myself what next can be exciting?.. BBC offered me a job - the brand is there, the value, the quality, the reputation is there... It can be considered a new chapter for us, because as much as the team is great and a lot of fundamental stuff has been already done, I think this is not yet what we think about BBC. In a sense, that deserves more... and that more, for us, is pretty much more presence, more 'umbrella' and 'all-in' type of a game for us, portfolio-wise. Not only portfolio of channels, but also portfolio of products, portfolio of divisions, you name it. There are channels, podcasts, audio services, there is consumer product, there is content production, there are lots, lots of other initiatives and areas of opportunities. From now on, we have that covered at one umbrella for all the region and we're all-in for the game."
When asked about BBC Studios' co-production strategy for the region, Witak shared that he and his team are working "on a five, seven-year plan, what's exciting on our side is the fact that we've got the opportunity to define the new pillars for us, for what's to come." The exec admitted that when it comes to content production in the region "it's something that it doesn't feel right, that is not present here for BBC Studios to the extent that we would like that to be, both in terms of covering topics, exploring opportunities, storytelling elements - all of that. In Zagreb (NEM Zagreb which is scheduled for December 10-12, ed.) I hope we'll be able to talk about more."
BBC Studios plans to focus more on non-scripted in the CEE region. "The thing is that there is a reason why drama for international purposes is developing more in, let's say, Western countries and what is the last couple of years hype - Scandinavia and Benelux because it's a home for crime mostly, not as violence on the streets, but as a content IP development hub. So, drama will be extremely difficult because whoever tried here in this part of the world to send something outside, it's not necessarily super successful - it's way more successful here, pan-regionally, locally, with either local incumbents or smart, tiny studios. But what works, definitely, and this is what we would like to test the waters first is the non-scripted area - factual, documentaries, it is much better positioned to travel outside. What would help is also us having the ambition to chip in to our global content library way more from this part of the world and this is how we're going to approach it as a first step - to go and find the right partners and partnerships to produce, co-produce, develop IP, different types of models, different types of partnerships that we can have and arrangements with people from us having content slate and giving that for localization here or completely the other way around, someone pitching a great idea and us producing that. We have to just find a flexible business model that would make us partners in that crime, not necessarily only crime content."
With regards to BBC Studios' presence and distribution strategy in the region, Witak commented that "when you look at the media landscape across CEE, in Poland the presence of BBC is quite okayish. There are always things that you can do more. Across other territories, it varies more. In Czech and Slovakia: a couple of days ago, we launched BBC First channel with our great partners - in Czechia O2 and T-Mobile and in Slovakia with Slovak Telekom. So, a great new channel is already there. Previously, we were on VOD services there, with BBC Earth and BBC First content... We know that we are missing eyeballs that will help us to actually recognize BBC content and quality of the content delivered to the audience way more. When we stick to tiny packages and not with everyone yet, we just limit ourselves with opportunity to tell the stories. And now going into the region and trying to produce and co-produce with our partners in the region, that would deserve these eyeballs even more because that would be a really regional effort going forward on the top of all these thousands of hours that we are providing from our global library."
Witak also underlined the fact that "BBC Studios in CEE will be evolving and we are changing our business model in order to address the requirements of a more extended number of eyeballs looking at us, at what we do, what we are delivering to the audience and our partners because, depending on from which perspective you are looking at the value chain model, sometimes you are like an AdSense client, sometimes you are a cable satellite mobile operator, sometimes just an OTT service, sometimes streaming. Our flexibility needs to be set out and loud here. We will be way more flexible going forward because that's the way from my experience in this part of the world sometimes and probably the key to success."
The exec also talked about streaming in the region: "we can follow all these statistics that are telling us on a daily basis: it's all great across Central Eastern Europe because linear TV is going to stay here much longer than other parts of the world. Expected number of pay TV households by 2028, 2029, 2030 is going to be 40, 45 million tops. So still, we are having some time to address the changing environment because one might say, okay, this is just a statistic which says this is pay TV households, this is the streaming households, we're going to beat them by 2030. But what it really means for us? What we don't have yet with BBC player because currently we are offering that in so-called affiliate model, which is the ingest to existing OTT platforms of our great partners, whether it's cable, satellite or mobile, doesn't really matter for us as long as we cooperate. But what we are missing is a standalone, more like app solution or something that could be offered. I would like to offer that in some sort of partnership in the market that would help us to bundle that to make it more attractive. But at the same time, let us learn, let us go through this part (a test phase, ed), otherwise we'll be all guessing."
