CATV Georgia - International conference – Days of the Georgian Cable Televisions

International conference – Days of the Georgian Cable Televisions– Third Millennium Together

On September 29 - October 1, Georgian Cable Televisions Union organized the International Telecommunications Conference in Tbilisi – “Days of the Georgian Cable Televisions – Third Millennium Together.” The heads of the professional unions and associations from Georgia and foreign countries, field experts, entities authorized on transmitting the broadcasting, heads of the companies producing devices, content producing companies, media experts, and representatives of the leading TV-Channels of the world participated in the conference. The delegations of many countries participated in the conference, which took place in the Tbilisi based complex - the Celebration Palace of Rituals.

Board Chair and founder of the Union Guram Beruashvili opened the conference, who spoke about the history of creating and development the cable television in Georgia as well as about the role of the Union in it.

Irina Sakhno, media expert from Mediasat, made a speech about the main trends on the world market. The markets of different countries eventually move to digital broadcasting and digital cable replaces the analogue. Services IPTV, OTT start playing the key role. Global indicators of the satellite television slowly increases although the situation in different countries and regions are different. Mobile revolution is developing and 5G USA market is the undisputable leader of the world market. One of the most urgent issues is integration into common digital market of Europe, the program aims to annul roaming between European countries, to promote access to online services, etc.
Irina Sakhno also made a presentation about the methods to fight against pirate broadcasting in the world - this problem is urgent in all countries, particularly in the post-soviet states. Even in the USA, which has achieved huge success in the fight against pirate broadcasting, 6% of illegal channels seized 500 million USD profit from the companies in 2015.

Nino Gogoladze, director of the company TVMRGE, spoke about the priorities of the Georgian audience and TV-Channel rates based on the Nielsen survey results.

Natia Kuprashvili, executive director of the Georgian Association of Regional Broadcasters (GARB), spoke about the transfer of Georgian broadcasting to digital broadcasting and the current situation on the market. She said internet access has reached 49%, though television is the main source of information for 90% of population.

Peteris Smidre, Chairman of the Latvian Telecommunications Association, shared the experience of Latvia in the development of the technologies and market. Mr. Smidre presented how the Latvian market was being developed in 2007-2008. The market reached its maximum with financial equivalent and afterwards started reduction. Among recent trends – online-subscriptions has increased, many new internet-providers appeared and the assets of the biggest operator Lattelecom is decreasing. Like in many countries across the world, the mobile internet is actively developing in Latvia. The online-service network is leader in Europe with several indicators and the price remains adequate to the process.

Vigen Arushanian, representative of the Armenian Association of Cable TV-Broadcasters, spoke about the Armenian market. Total 27 000 persons are customers of the paid televisions in Armenia; 4 500 of them use the satellite televisions and 50% of them live in Yerevan. At the same time, there are 44 acting operators in the country. In accordance to the prognosis of Vigen Arushanian, the market of the digital paid televisions is increasing in parallel to the number of HD-TV Channels. The competition from digital televisions is getting stronger and new decisions are expected on the market, among them with the support of the new operators of the OTT networks LTE 4 G, DTH. The main problem in Armenia is financial problems of the population; irrelevance between the fee/channel numbers; lack of rights to have access to many popular TV-Channels; availability of high-rating television content and films. Thus, the paid television market is not overcrowded in Armenia and is ready to accept new technologies and new TV-channels.

Vladimer Topal, chairman of the Patron Association of TV-Radio Broadcasters of Moldova, spoke about the regulations of the cable televisions in Moldova, about the copyright problems, transfer to digital broadcasting and various problems of media-market.

Giorgi Barzashvili, director of the Ukrainian Company DigitalScreens, shared the experience of building the paid television in Ukrainian market, which did not have experience of paying the fee and is full of pirate companies. The company develops several platforms: 3GTV – in partnership with Vodafone; ADSLIPTV – UkrTelecom, OTT (OLL.TV), 3GVOD, DTH (XtraTV) and ready-to-air international OTT project. Mr. Barzashvili spoke about the project of the interactive television, which was developed in cooperation with UkrTelecom.

German Geer, Sales Director of the Company ASTRO Strobel (Germany), spoke how European cable operators developed and built networks and business-models.

World leading TV-Channels, including the channels of the FilmBox Internationa, made presentations during the conference.

Articles about the conference were published in different editions of the world. Mediasat wrote: “We would like to tell you about very welcoming environment, which are not characteristic for official events and it is impossible to describe the situation in the article of business edition. I do not know what the secret was. Maybe, the family of Mr. Guram – actual organizers of the conference, was the reason of the pleasant environment. Or maybe the beauty of Georgia played the role – beautiful, hospitable country, which is impossible not to be loved. All in all, the conference was miracle real fairy story, and I wish everybody to take part in it!”

The Union of Georgian Cable Televisions expresses cordial gratitude to all participants and partners of the conference.

____________________________ ORGANAIZER_______________________________

„Cable Televisions Union of Georgia“