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Producer: Ana Maria Caia/Indie Studio
Text: Iulian Comanescu
Image: Andrei Butica
Image Editing: Paul Popa
Sound Processing: Razvan Cirligeanu
Style: Alex Balasescu
Hair Style: Dana Gottschling
Special Thanks to: Mirela Rus/Soros Romania

Local Forbes edition to be launched by Adevărul Holding

Adevărul Holding, one of the major groups on the Romanian media market, has closed a deal with Forbes to launch a local edition of the magazine. The first issue is to appear in March 2009, with a print run of 50,000 copies. The content is to be 60% per cent local.

Adevărul to launch a free evening sheet

Adevărul Holding, one of the major Romanian publishers, is to launch today Adevărul de seară, an evening free sheet with a 250,000 print run. The new free sheet is a brand extension of the Adevărul newspaper, one of the oldest qualities in Romania, taken over in 2005 by Dinu Patriciu and selling 26,000 copies in average. It is to appear in Bucharest, Iaşi, Cluj, Timişoara, Oradea, Arad and Bacau.

The evening newspaper is the fourth daily free sheet in Romania, after Compact (Ringier - 160,000 circulation) Curentul (Mihai Iacob - 86,000) and Ring (Negoiţă - unaudited).

Adevărul Holding also announced four new printing plants in Bucureşti, Timişoara, Iaşi and Cluj.

Voiculescu/Intact internalizes internet ad sales

Some, if not all the Voiculescu group internet sites will be sold via Intact Interactive, a new division of the group, run by the former executive director of Boom, the greatest on-line advertising broker in Romania - Financiarul newspaper reported. Until the executive director (Magda Zander)’s move to Intact last week, 18 Voiculescu sites - including the leading content site, GSP.ro - had been sold by Boom. The total number of page impressions of the 18 sites was 54,5 million in September, according to official SATI data.

The new sales division ranks roughly sixth in terms of traffic, as a sales unit. Other big classic media groups, such as Mediapro and Realitatea-Caţavencu have internalized their sales during the last two years. The most important two advertising brokers on the internet are Boom and ARBOinteractive.

Voiculescu to launch Business TV next spring

The Voiculescu group, a major player on the Romanian media market, is preparing to launch Business TV next spring, unofficial sources told Comanescu.ro. The niche channel launch was initially scheduled for December 2, but was postponed due to some logistics problems. Gabriela Vrânceanu Firea, a TV presenter at Voiculescu’s main TV station, Antena 1, and the director of the Voiculescu group business weekly and daily newspaper, is the project manager of Business TV.

According to some sources on the market, the new channel started | More…

TV ratings for August

The August top 10 of TV ratings, according to Business Standard:

1. Pro TV (commercial, CME): 2,1
2. Antena 1 (commercial, Voiculescu): 1,4
3. TVR 1 (public): 1
4. Acasa TV (commercial, women, CME): 1
5. Realitatea TV (rolling news, Vîntu): 0,8
6. OTV (tabloid): 0,7
7. Prima TV (commercial, SBS): 0,6
8. Kanal D (commercial, Dogan/Ringier): 0,5
9. Antena 3 (rolling news, Voiculescu): 0,5
10. TVR 2 (public): 0,4.

The 1st channel of the public television gets a good result, due to the Olympics live broadcasts.

Ratings for all urban, GfK/ARMA. Other monthly audience data.

Media/oil mogul Dinu Patriciu takes over Ukraine tabloid

Dinu Patriciu, a Romanian oil mogul, took over Blik, the tabloid launched in Ukraine in 2006 by Ringier AG, according to Kommersant. Patriciu became the richest Romanian after the sale of 75% of Rompetrol to KazMunaiGaz (Kazahstan) for 2,7 billion US dollars.

Blik - Ukraine

Various rumors about Ringier’s lack of success in Ukraine have spread after Blik’s launching by Ringier.

Starting with 2005, the oil mogul became involved into the Romanian media market with | More…

June round-up: BBC and Free Europe go off-air, political virals, legal restrictions

• BBC Romania and Radio Free Europe Romania are to go off-air on August 1st, due to buget restrictions. BBC Romania offered employees several month’s wage as a compensation

• Two senators proposed and got a modification of the Audiovisual Law that asks television stations broadcasting positive and negative topics news in equal proportions. If promulgated by Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, the law will become effective
• Evenimentul zilei, one of the leading quality newspapers and a phenomenon in the nineties, got a management: Horia Ghibuţiu as an Editor-in-Chief and Vlad Macovei as a Deputy, after Răzvan Ionescu and Grigore Cartianu’s resignal, several weeks ago
• The two candidates for the 2nd round of the local elections in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, released two viral materials in youtube. Sorin Oprescu, the winner of the June 15th vote, scored over 26,000 views:

  In the video, Sorin Oprescu, an independent (former social-democrate), pretends to keep a speech about political independence, while chasing a bulldog, his opponent’s impersonation. | More…

High ratings on the public channel, due to Euro 2008

The first channel of the public television achieved high ratings and more than 50% market share due to the Romania-France broadcast on June 9th (final result: 0-0). The first half of the match had 2,664,000 viewers in average (market share: 58,9%), and the second achieved 2,971,000 viewers (share: 57,8%) - target all urban, GfK peoplemeter data. The ratings are remarkable following the continuous drop in audience of the public television during the last year. TVR 1, the first channel of the public television, fell to the 4th or 5th place in terms of monthly averages, virtually equal to the audience of the main rolling news television in Romania, Realitatea TV. The traditional position on the market of TVR1 was the 3rd place, after the leading commercial stations, Pro TV and Antena 1.

Romania-France ratings on June 9th. Source: GfK data processed by TVR

Other matches such as Holland-Italy or Sweden-Greece, broadcast by TVR 1, also acheived good ratings.

According to some voices on the market, the drop in audience is due to | More…

The public television started to broadcast in HD

The Romanian public television started its HD broadcast on June 1st 2008, according to a press release. The broadcast is experimental and viewable on channel 59/DVB-t, or satellite with a Viaccess 2.6 card. TVR HD is the 2nd Romanian channel broadcasting in high definition, after Pro TV, the leading commercial station.