The academic literature documents an over-time trend in the emergence of a more stable set of party actors in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). However, content-based accounts of the main issue-divides are rare, and it remains less clear whether the emerging stability is coupled with programmatic structuration. The paper takes a supply-side perspective to examine to what extent parties in CEE are programmatically differentiated. Using the quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage of national parliamentary electoral campaigns from Hungary (1994-2022), Latvia (1993-2022), Poland (1997-2023), and Romania (1996-2020), the paper zooms in cross-national and over time perspectives. It examines the level of programmatic competition, issue salience and politicization at the party-system-level, and issue salience and entrepreneurship at the party-level. The results highlight the role of programmatic competition both on the system and on the party-level in distinguishing mainstream vs. new parties on economic, cultural, and political issues.