Romania’s President is seen less often on TV

Romania’s President, Traian Băsescu, appeared only 84 times on the main national Romanian TV stations during November 2006, according to the last monitoring provided by the broadcast regulating authority, the CNA. Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, Romania’s Prime Minister, has a much stronger TV presence, according to the same monitoring, with 124 appearances.

After the change of power in December 2004, the number of appearances on TV of the two politicians was roughly the same.

The TV stations taken into consideration by the CNA were: TVR 1 and TVR 2 (public), Pro TV and Antena 1 (main commercial) and Antena 3 and Realitatea TV (rolling news). The CNA also released a monitoring of the main radio stations, where the President is placed the third, after the leader of the main opposition party, Mircea Geoană (PSD).

The top of the appearances (length and number): | More…

Romanian mogul acquires four new titles

The ‘Catavencu’ print Group, belonging to the controversial Romanian mogul Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, officially stated it acquired four new titles in its portofolio. ‘Bilant’, an economic monthly, IQAds.ro, a media and advertising Internet site, ‘J’Adore’, a shopping magazine, and ‘Psihologia Azi’, a psychology monthly, will raise the total of titles in ‘Catavencu’ to 14.

‘Catavencu’ was taken over by Vîntu in may, 2006. The transaction is part of the so-called oligarchs assault on the media market. Dinu Patriciu, another controversial billionare, also started to build a media empire earlier this year, while Dan Voiculescu and Adrian Sîrbu, the other two big media owners, have also been active on the market lately.

• Romanian oligarchs slow down their assault of the media market [EN, Comanescu.ro]

The Romanian media about the Romanian media

Romanian newspapers report quite a lot on themselves and other types of media, reveals a study by The Center of Independent Journalism (CJI - RO) and Media Monitoring Agency (AMP - RO). One of the explanations resides in the various connections between the mass media domain and some other wide-interest topics:

• the former secret police: some journalists were revealed as ex-delators for the Securitate
• the Romanian oligarchs taking over or launching various titles/televisions, supposedly to protect themselves from the anti-corruption campaign of the Justice and Truth government alliance; media property transfer in general
• secret services agents infiltrated among journalists, possibly with unethical/non-democratic goals
• political biasing of the media
• assaulted journalists.

The study doesn’t include a comparison with an earlier stage of the Romanian society, such as the former social-democrat (PSD) mandate. However, most of the topics above appeared massively in the Romanian newspapers after the change of political power, when the political pressure decreased significantly.

Top of the national newspapers, according to the number of stories published on mass media topics, September, 2006: | More…

Top Romanian Brands

Dacia, Romania’s national car, is the top brand in Romania, according to a study published by the BusinessWeek magazine. Dacia was recently taken over by Renault and manufactures the Logan, an inexpensive car quite successful in Europe due to the 6-7000 euros price.

1. Dacia (car, taken over by Renault) - 387,4 mil euros
2. BCR (taken over by Erste) - 355,6 mil euros
3. BRD (Societe Generale) - GSG 208 mil euros
4. Petrom (oil) - 86 mil euros
5. Sensiblu (pharma) - 82 mil euros
6. Rompetrol (oil) - 72 mil. euros
7. Cristim (food) - 62 mil. euros
8. Asirom (insurance) - 60 mil. euros
9. Altex (household appliances) - 59 mil. euros
10. Domo (household appliances) - 41 mil. euros.

Romanian media mogul continues expansion on the Internet

Adrian Sîrbu’s Internet company, Media Pro Interactiv, launched on Monday Omsaracombogat.ro [RO], the site of a Romanian sitcom broadcast on Sîrbu’s TV station, Pro TV. Omsaracombogat.ro is the fifth spinoff of a Sîrbu television show launched since the beginning of the autumn.

The site includes some picures, news, a making of section, a blog and a “Downloads” section, where some pictures can be found. | More…

The price of ‘Averea’

‘Averea’, a daily newspaper, was taken over by the Romanian oil mogul Dinu Patriciu for 560,000 euros, reveals the Romanian news agency NewsIn, quoted by Jurnalismonline.ro [RO]. The price covers the value of a small newspaper, with sales in the 20,000 copies area, while the top 3 Romanian newspapers sell roughly 250,000 copies (Libertatea), 90,000 copies (Jurnalul national) and 70,000 copies (Evenimentul zilei). | More…

3 new spin-offs of the most popular Romanian Internet site

The “Gazeta Sporturilor” sports sites ring includes three new projects, Blogdeliceu.ro, Pariori.ro and Suporteri.ro, wrote Gusti Roman, the executive director of Gazeta Sporturilor, on his blog. The first one targets high school users, translates ‘high-schoolblog.ro’ and will provide a blog to all the 11 high schools included into a soccer competition. Pariori.ro will provide on-line betting facilities, while Suporteri.ro (’Suporters.ro’), to be launched on Friday, will include a soccer forum.

The three new sites are included into a spin-offs cloud built around the very succesful GSP.ro, the site of one of the two big sports newspapers in Romania, rated the first in terms of audience by Trafic.ro, a well-known public traffic measurement service. The cloud includes team communities such as Stelisti.ro or Dinamovisti.ro and blogs of famous sports journalists.

New director at the Academia Catavencu trust

The Academia Catavencu trust, taken over in may 2006 by the controversial Romanian billionaire Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, has a new director for the Quality division. Aurelian Amurăriţei will be the publisher of the Academia Caţavencu satire weekly, Cotidianul daily newspaper, Le monde diplomatique Romanian edition and Idei în dialog, an intellectual debate monthly. Some new projects are also expected.

The management structure of the Academia Caţavencu trust includes:

• Sergiu Toader, former project manager at Realitatea Media, Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu’s TV company - content manager of print, radio and TV; Sorin Enache, idem, business manager of the three.
• Sorin Vulpe - president, print & radio (Guerilla - managed by Calin Husar)
• Robert Tătăruş, Realitatea TV news director
• Dragoş Stanca (ex-Mediapro, Adrian Sîrbu) - general director, print
• Aurelian Amurăriţei - director, print, Quality. | More…

Psihologia azi for sale

A source from the top management of the Academia Catavencu press holding denied that Psihologia azi was sold to Academia Catavencu. However, the source confirmed the information given by another source to Comanescu.ro earlier - that Psihologia azi is for sale and Capricorn Media, the independent publisher of the title, started various negociations.

Psihologia azi sells 13,000 copies and has an audience of 93,000 readers, according to the latest BRAT (Romanian ABC) and SNA (National Study of Audience) figures.

Local association aiming to become an IAB Europe affiliate

The first general assembly of the IAB Romania Association took place on Thursday, November 23rd. The Association aims to affiliate itself to IAB Europe and to solve problems such as overlayers proliferation on Romanian sites. The first assembly resulted in establishing the management structure of the Association. | More…