Turkey’s DSmart shelves international plans

Turkish pay TV platform DSmart has cancelled plans to launch its service internationally because of turbulent market conditions, a senior company source told TBIvision.

DSmart’s international plans have fallen by the wayside as the global economic turmoil hits Europe. "We looked a lot into the Ukraine, Romania, and Germany, but then the financial crisis hit the market so now all of those projects are ‘pending’. We are not anymore investigating any international opportunities. We are putting all of our focus back on to our homeland," the source said.

DSmart, owned by Turkish media Dogan, had been actively negotiating the launch its DTH service in several of Turkey’s neighboring countries. Back in May that it said it was interested in launching in Germany, after buying a minority stake in German DTH operator Premiere’s pay TV channel business Premiere Star. DSmart said at the time that it bought the stake to help it gain access to key content for the intended platform.

The retrenchment comes as analysts downgrade forecasts for the Turkish TV market. This morning investment bank Credit Suisse slashed its projections for advertising growth in the country, citing economic slowdown and the weak Turkish Lira.