Netflix more interesting than “New Year’s Eve”? In 2022, no program on Polish television exceeded 5 million viewers

There is no need to convince anyone that television in Poland is experiencing a crisis in Poland. For several years, the escape of younger viewers towards the increasingly rich offer of streaming services has been noticeable. This trend is also shown by hard data.

From the study wave makerwhich was created based on telemetry data collected by the company Nielsen Audience Measurement shows that last year there was not a single program broadcast on Polish TV stations that would attract more than 5 million viewers.

Interestingly, in 2009 there were as many as 436 such programs. In the following years, however, there was an avalanche decline. In 2012, it was only 192, in 2016 – 99, in 2020 – only 6, and in 2021 – as in the previous year – none.

At this point, it is worth noting that the Wavemaker study does not take into account the broadcast of sporting events. These still attract millions of viewers in front of the screens. For example, as many as 14 million viewers watched the match between Poland and France on TVP during last year’s World Cup.

2022 is the second year when no TV program outside the sports category has managed to break the 5 million viewer mark. While a few years ago, the declining number of high-rated shows could be explained mainly by fragmentation and declining shares of the largest channels, today this trend is also causing a decline in the popularity of TV (slight if you look at all viewers, and quite drastic among young people: 13-29 or 16 -24 years).

– we read in the message from Wavemaker Poland published on Facebook.

The fact that television in Poland is getting worse is probably best evidenced by the fact that in 2022 the most popular non-sports program on TV stations turned out to be… “Sylwester Marzeń” by Telewizja Polska, which attracted 3.93 million viewers.

The youngest are the fastest to run away from televisions, which is not surprising. Group watch time in 2022 13-29 has shrunk by 15% to 71 minutes a day. In turn, the daily coverage of television in this group decreased from 29.5 percent to 29.5 percent. up to 26 percent

The biggest culprits are, of course, VOD services such as Disney+, HBO Max and Netflix.

Although we wish broadcasters the reactivation of large audiences, we predict that live, on linear TV, we will not return to the era of 5 million viewers. Excluding the golden sports shots (read mainly matches with the participation of Poles), a success for the broadcast of a single program on entertainment or information TV today is breaking the limit of 3 million viewers. Of course, we are talking about only television – probably the statistics of “Chyłki” or “M jak miłość” would conquer their audience in streaming. Therefore, we wish both ourselves and the broadcasters that our rankings of the popularity of programs in the near future could also cover the world of VOD / OTT

– emphasizes Wavemaker Poland.

Cord-cutting scissors cut off the world from traditional television

Streaming services are one of the biggest revolutions in the media industry in recent decades. Even at the beginning of the 21st century, linear television reigned supreme in the world. If we wanted to watch the next episode of our favorite series, we had to wait a whole week for it to air. The advent of platforms like Netflix has completely changed the rules of the game. The television schedule ceased to matter. We – the viewers – started to create our own schedule.

Thus was born binge-watching phenomenon, i.e. watching a few or even a dozen or so episodes of the series during one evening (and night). Streaming services have also brought another revolution – unlike cable TV, they do not bind customers with long contracts for 12, 24 or 36 months. You can opt out of Netflix, Player or HBO Max from month to month.

This, in turn, led to the appearance cord-cutting phenomena, i.e. mass resignations from cable TV offers in favor of streaming services. According to data from Statista.com, in the USA the number of pay TV customers fell from 88 to 74 percent between 2010 and 2020. It is also estimated that by 2024, 46 million households will “cut off the cable” and resign from the cable service offer. It is possible that the coronavirus pandemic, which has been going on for more than a year, will further accelerate this trend.

According to a report by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), that already in 2018, there were more subscribers to SVOD services in the world (613.3 million) than subscribers to the cable TV offer (556 million). Experts from Capgemini calculated that at the end of 2020, streaming was winning over cable in over 30 countries.

And what is the situation in Poland? In 2014, cable offers were used by 71 percent. households, and five years later the percentage had fallen to 63 percent. In 2020, the Office of Electronic Communications published a report showing that almost 20 percent of Poles plan to give up cable television in favor of streaming services.