Piano Media a.s.

Payments for Polish Premium Online Content Kicks Off

Warsaw, Poland Sept. 3, 2012 - Starting at midnight Monday, Polish digital visitors will begin paying for access using Piano’s simple one login, one payment system to view premium content and services services from seven Polish media on 42 websites with over 119 different sections. Piano’s Polish pre-registration period ended yesterday, just seven weeks after Polish media announced they were going to start using Piano Media’s online common-payment system.

From today, users wishing to access premium content on Polish newspaper and magazine websites or listen to high quality audio will select from one of three subscription plans - PLN 9.90 (€2.37) a week, PLN 19.90 (€4.70) per month or PLN 199 (€47) yearly. Included in each Piano subscription is full online access to premium content from online media such as Poland’s leading daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Polish National Radio; the national daily Super-Express; 20 major Polish regional newspapers; lifestyle magazine Murator Dom; Forbes, the monthly business magazine, along with a number of other online publications. 
 
Polish pre-registrations were strong, affirming the expectations of both Piano Media and its media partners that Piano’s system will be successful. “Pre-registrations were surprisingly good,” said Piano’s Chief Executive Tomáš Bella, “when our partners started to lock content on their websites, implemented our key payment icon and pushed premium content to their users, pre-registrations really picked up. If we do as well in Poland as we did in Slovakia and Slovenia, then we can expect our results to be right on target”
 
With Piano Media’s payment model, media choose what content of theirs to place within the Piano system and what benefits digital users will receive. Some media will offer exclusive access to their premium content ahead of release to the general public, others will provide exclusive material available only to users with a Piano subscription while  Polish Radio will stream high quality audio to Piano subscribers. 

Poland is the third country world wide that has implemented Piano Media’s nation-wide online common-payment subscription scheme. Piano Media’s success has inspired intense interest from publishers worldwide. Piano Media currently is in negotiations with publishers in 11 European countries and has plans to launch in one more market by the end of 2012.