Zer in on:

Romania is one of the few countries where time spent on online TV went down in 2020, as did the size of the overall user base.

What makes it so different? For one thing, it has the second highest penetration rate of cable TV in any of our tracked markets, behind only Portugal. Consumers in the country are less likely to be cutting the cord, particularly as cable packages in the country are competitively priced.

Most TV viewing in Romania still happens purely through a TV set, so the multi-device selling point of online TV is less relevant too.

Romania also bucks the trend for increased time spent on games consoles. But this isn’t necessarily down to less interest in gaming. Rather, the Romanian gaming market, like much of Eastern Europe, is much more driven by PCs. There are multiple reasons for this, but one may be better IT literacy; consumers in Romania are 57% more likely than the European average to be working in the IT/telecoms industry.

Romania is an important reminder that some more traditional media types – whether it’s cable TV, or PC gaming, are still very relevant in some markets.