Investment frenzy came to a halt on the Romanian media market

During the last two years, the Romanian media market has been prone to an investment frenzy, especially from the part of some very rich and controversial Romanian businessmen, who got a position on the major media groups list by their moves. However, it seems to have come to a halt.

Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, one of the richest Romanians, has cancelled his plans for two new niche televisions, ‘Picanto’ (cooking channel) and ‘Wedding TV’ (a franchise of the British namesake). The move might have been due to the fact that his recently re-launched Romantica, a women channel, has rather small audience figures, and Realitatea TV, Vîntu’s leading rolling news niche television, is losing its advance to Antena 3, its main competitor on the segment.

In spite of giving in 75% of the huge oil Rompetrol conglomerate to KazMunaiGaz, a kazah state company, for 2,7 billion dollars, Dinu Patriciu doesn’t have any spectacular investment plans for his newly-acquired media group. In spite of becoming the richest Romanian, the businessman stated to the Romanian business weekly ‘Money Express’ he would focus on ‘building a competent management’ for his media business, a process which he says he has already started successfully. During 2006 and 2007, Patriciu took over the ‘Adevărul’ quality newspaper and he relaunched ‘Averea’, another daily, as a tabloid, under the name of ‘Click!’. While ‘Adevărul’ had a slight circulation increase after the takeover, ‘Click!’ seems to be a success, by reaching 70,000 sold copies somewhere in May, according to unofficial figures provided by the editor, which might place it on the third place of the general interest newspapers’ hierarchy in Romania, after ‘Libertatea’ (Ringier) and ‘Jurnalul naţional’ (Voiculescu-Intact).

The discussions between the Voiculescu family, on one hand, and RTL and the Permira investment fund, on the other hand, don’t seem to have an imminent outcome. The Voiculescu family controls various media outlets such as Antena 1, the 2nd commercial television, ‘Jurnalul naţional’, the 2nd newspaper, and ‘Gazeta Sporturilor’, the leading sports newspaper. After selling 5% of his participation at the so-called MediaPro Group to CME for 49,8 million dollars, Adrian Sârbu seems the only big player on the market likely to pump some funds into old or new media assets, according to PR info released by CME/MediaPro.

The Romanian media market is divided among five big players. Together with Sârbu/CME, Voiculescu, Vîntu and Patriciu, Ringier controls the greatest part of the daily newspapers market and has an important part of the thriving women glossies market. Other important players are Edipresse-AS (magazines), SBS (TV/Radio) and Lagardere (radio, plans for two TV stations).

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1. [...] şi Wedding TV sunt două proiecte la care s-a renunţat la Vîntu. Recapitulare la toate acestea pe Comanescu.ro, pentru uz extern. Ghici cine-i, totuşi, mogulul media care va lansa [...]

   Pingback by Media lui Comanescu » S-au potolit mogulii — September 10, 2007 #

2. The latest buzz in town is that the Micula brothers will sell most of their TV stations (National TV, N24) to Patriciu.

   A day after the gossip appeared in one local publication, they hastened to deny it. However, the haste in itself is a sign of things to come…

   Comment by Turambar — September 10, 2007 #

3. Voiculescu? Its true? I hope, not…

   Comment by giuliano — September 11, 2007 #

4. Turambar: I don’t believe in Patriciu taking over National & N 24. The Micula Brothers ask a lot of money for them - 50 million euros according to some sources -, and besides, there are some complications with the equipment, which is acquisitioned from Sweden under some complicated leasing conditions.

   In addition, Patriciu is likely to release his public statements according to normal business ethics, lately. He wouldn’t have denied it if it was true.

   Comment by Iulian Comanescu — September 11, 2007 #

5. Giuliano: Voiculescu is not likely to start new businesses in the media field, in the near future. The one posessing both the money and the will to do it is Sarbu.

   Comment by Iulian Comanescu — September 11, 2007 #

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