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…

New superglossies on the Romanian market

Marie Claire Romania will be launched at the Romanian newsstands on Wednesday, April 16. The magazine is edited by Sanoma Romania and positioned in the upper zone of the glossies market. The Editor-in-Chief, Mara Stroe, has successfully launched the Romanian Glamour at Liberis Publications, in the Autumn of 2006.

Another international women glossy soon to be launched on the Romanian market is InStyle, published by Attica Media and run by Dana Negrilă.

The Romanian women glossies market has became rather crowded since 2005. The strongest publishers, Ringier Romania and Edipresse-AS, have launched three | More…

Tabloids are prosperous

During 2007, the uncontested leader of the newspaper market in Romania, Libertatea (Ringier România), started to be seriously challenged by two other titles, Click! (Adevărul Holding - Patriciu) and Can-Can (independent, taken over by Adrian Sârbu according to some unofficial information). According to the Romanian ABC (Biroul Român de Audit al Tirajelor - BRAT.ro), the market is as described in the following chart (sold circulation taken into account, data missing where the value is 0):

Libertatea is the traditional leader of the newspapers market in Romania and keeps its position, in spite of an important circulation decrease during the fall-winter of 2007. It sells more than twice than the next title in the hierarchy, Jurnalul naţional, whose position is now threatened by Click!. Having a formula close to the Swiss Blick (ported also on some other Eastern Europe markets), the leader is published by Ringier România, the strongest print group on the market. During the autumn of 2006, the executive director of the Ringier division in charge of Libertatea, Răzvan Corneţeanu, has left Ringier | More…

Adrian Sârbu appointed as the COO of CME

Adrian Sârbu, 52, has been appointed as the new Chief Operating Officer of Central European Media Enterprises, a company owned by Estee Lauder’s inheritors and operating in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Sârbu is famous in Romania for launching, on December 1st 1995, Pro TV, the actual leader of the TV market and a revolutionary concept among the Romanian media, based on an American model. He also has developed some other TV projects, such as the very successful women station Acasa TV, and massive print and radio divisions, including a successful business newspaper, two FM stations networks, the leading press agency in Romania and several magazines.

Some allegations about uneven business practices have foreshadowed Sârbu’s career. One of them refers to friendly treatment reserved to the ex-communists in power between 2001 and 2004, in exchange for tax payments postponing. At a certain point, the tax due to the state was more than 40 million US dollars.

Sârbu is famous for his ego-oriented management and his visions transformed into reality. He very seldom appeared in the media, and has only given two interviews, at 1 year and ten years after the Pro TV launching, on his own TV station. He only owns 5% of the companies controlling the TV operations, after recently having sold two 5% stakes to CME - the last one, for 49,8 million US dollars. The ownership of most of the radio, print and internet operations is the same, but the proportions are opposite.

The radio and print operations of Sârbu/CME might become very active, due to Sârbu’s intentions to sell a big part of his participation to CME, stated by unofficial sources.

CME first six months of 2007 results: net revenues - 364.2 million US dollars, operating income - 85.8 million US dollars.

A meeting of the CME investors will begin today, in Bucharest. Some live audio broadcasts and presentation slides will be available on the site of CME, CETV-net.com, today, at 9.30 EET.

Andreea Esca, the 7 pm news anchor on Pro TV,
a face very familiar to the Romanians

The CME press release: | More…

Romanian business newspapers niche appearing

The success of ‘Ziarul financiar’, a newspaper started by one of the big Romanian media groups, MediaPro, in 1998, has been a model for ‘Business Standard’, another title launched on May 18th, this year, by another Romanian publisher, Realitatea-Caţavencu. Unofficial informations started to appear lately about a third business daily newspaper, to be launched somewhere during the first half of 2008, by Intact-Antena-Jurnalul, a group controlled by the Voiculescu family, leading the sports newspapers market (’Gazeta Sporturilor’) and holding a second position on the general newspapers market (’Jurnalul naţional’) and in terms of commercial general interest televisions (Antena 1).

The work title is ‘Profitabil’ (’Lucrative’), and the project management is provided by the team at ‘Sâptămâna financiară’, an newspaper-style business weekly published by Intact/Jurnalul.

‘Ziarul financiar’, a project inspired by ‘Financial Times’, is the first successful niche player on the Romanian | More…

German investor increases its involvment on the Romanian media market

European Media Investment AG (EMI), an ARBOmedia company, is planning a strategic expansion on the Romanian market, by continuing the local newspapers takeover campaign, investing into two printing plants and a local news Internet portal. ARBOmedia/EMI is already present on the Romanian market with several local titles. Its main competitors are the Austrians from Inform Media and also the PubliMedia local network, developed by Adrian Sârbu with CME support.

ARBOmedia also owns 80% of one of the two most important internet advertising brokers.

The EMI board recently took the decision to get listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, according to [EN] Finanztreff.de.

ARBOmedia.ro [EN]

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. | More…

Media event in Bucharest

On October 11th, at the Howard Johnson Hotel, a conference called ‘Newspapers and new media in dialogue with the future’ is to take place, organized by Freedom House and the Media Management Institute. Among the speakers there are Cristian Tudor Popescu, president of the Romanian Press Club, John Chisholm, a strategy advisor of WAN, well-known managers in the Romanian media. Iulian Comanescu will also have a presentation called ‘The news aggregators and the traditional content producers’.

Details [EN] on the conference site.

Romanian Daily Newspapers Market, 2006 versus 2005: a fall of 7 %

The daily newspaper market in 2006 changed compared to 2005. The launch of a free of charge daily newspaper, and the dramatic changes to the editorial team and owner gave the daily printed press a brand new form. Drawing an inference and calculating, this means a total circulation lower by 7 percentages. This fall foresees a rearrangement of the reference segment.

The seven percentages refer to the average number of the sold circulations per day for the nationally distributed daily newspapers. The information recently disclosed by the Romanian Circulation Audit Office (BRAT) shows that the number of the sold copies fell by 57,901 copies, from an average of 820,190 in 2005 to 762,289 in 2006. | More…