The national daily newspapers market: 950.000 distributed copies

The total market of the Romanian national newspapers raises to roughly 950.000 copies, according to the latest figures from the Romanian ABC (BRAT). 4 of the 6 greatest circulation newspapers belong to Ringier România, while the other two are owned by Intact (Dan Voiculescu).

The leader of the market, Libertatea, a Ringier title, sells roughly 270.000 copies and has a market share of 28 %, including free, sports, business, hungarian, or 43 %, on the purely general interest, sold at newsstands dailies. This more restricted market raises to 631.632 copies.

According to their sold circulation and other characteristics, the newspapers on the Romanian market could be divided into three cathegories: sexy young-mature, mid-life crisis and agonizing dwarves. | 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…

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.

Six titles with problems

The daily newspapers in Romania haven’t followed the audience’s taste to the same extent that markets such as women glossies have. The latest editorial content and team changes give the opportunity of a forecast for every title.

Top 3 Libertatea, Jurnalul National and Evenimentul zilei confirm the saying that on the developed media markets in Romania the first three players have a safe evolution. The massive exodus from Libertatea hasn’t yet affected the sold circulation of the newspaper, Jurnalul follows a stable trend after the Logans campaigns, as the second newspaper, and Evenimentul also keeps its position. | More…

Evenimentul zilei’s staff assaulted by offers (updated)

Evenimentul zilei, one of the top three general Romanian newspapers, lost two of the journalists on its board because of offers made by Adevarul, the daily recently taken over by Dinu Patriciu, one of the controversial Romanian billionaires who have recently started an assault of the Romanian media market. After Laurentiu Ciocazanu and Ovidiu Nahoi last Friday announced they would leave the Evenimentul board for the positions of editor-in-chief and deputy-editor-in-chief at Adevarul, rumours started appearing about offers made by Adevarul management to a dozen of other Evenimentul staff writers. According to some other sources, Evenimentul is preparing some counter-offers.

On Thursday, November 23rd, Evenimentul zilei’s Editor-in-Chief Razvan Ionescu held a meeting with the entire team of the publication where he announced training opportunities for the team and admitted offers were made to journalists. According to other sources, there will be a 7% general salary increase at Evenimentul Zilei. Ionescu also said he would have individual talks with employees during the next days. | More…

Libertatea’s campaign: anti-British folklore, figures about high drugs intake in UK

Libertatea, Wednesday, 22 November: UK is ‘the European capital of drugs’ (sic), figures showing the high use of illegal substances in Britain, a Romanian musician called Jan de la Craiova (Jan from Craiova) that has composed an anti-British ‘manea’. ‘Manea’ (pl.: ‘manele’) is a hard to define phenomenon very popular during the last years, simliar to the ‘turbo-folk’ in Serbia: a mix of Turkish, Gypsy and Romanian music, with a pathetic singer and poor electronic (keyboards & drum machine) orchestration. Words are also pathetic and in general stupid, which in the anti-British song reads:

The Englishmen’s Grudge

Many Romanians with a big soul
Have left the country,
They’re the kings of ideas,
The Englishmen’s grudge.

They look for the straw in our eye
Try to kick us out from their country,
Make up diseases,
Only to get rid of us.

Ref.:
Still
We’re worthy Romanians
At home and abroad.

• The Libertatea story [RO] with the original words.

The tabloids war ending: The Sun silent, Libertatea deals with the AIDS infected Romanian migrants issue

Libertatea published today a new piece [RO] coping with the negative reports about Romanian migrants in The Sun newspaper. The Romanian tabloid refers to a piece printed in its UK opponent on November 16, called ‘Migrants’ AIDS epidemic threat [EN]‘. Some officials from the Romanian health system say the issue is well taken care of. The Romanian daily also unburies a statement several years old, belonging to Bill Clinton, that has congratulated Romania for the way it copes with AIDS.

The story ends with an approval letter of a Romanian veterans association.

The Sun didn’t refer to any trouble caused by Romanian migrants in the UK since November 17, when Libertatea’s campaign ‘Look who’s talking’ started. The today’s piece in Libertatea’s tone of voice is more neutral compared to the first episodes of the campaign, where the British have been called ‘drunkards, pedophiles and hooligans’.

The president of the Romanian Press Club resigns

The president of the most important Romanian journalists’ and editors’ association resigned on Monday, November 20. Cristian Tudor Popescu, a public figure and also the director of the Gandul newspaper, invoked as a reason for his resignation from the chair of the Romanian Press Club the loss of prestige of the journalist job in Romania, as a result of the massive human resources moves on the market, fuelled by the money of several controversial Romanian billionaires. | More…

The tabloids war: We’re not Europe’s tuberculars, says Libertatea

Libertatea’s ‘Look who’s talking’ campaign, aiming the negative reports about Romanian migrants in The Sun, continues today with a story called ‘We’re not Europe’s tuberculars [RO]‘. Libertatea promises it will answer all the allegations previously published in The Sun and addresses an piece printed on November 3 by the British tabloid, expressing some concerns that TB could be brought in UK by Romanian immigrants.

After observing that The Sun has blasted a ‘media bomb’ that ‘hurt the pride of every Romanian’, Libertatea says Romania is provided with ‘the most efficient and well functioning TB control system in Europe’. A medical doctor says Romanian TB patients are not likely to leave the care they take in Romania to go to the UK.

Libertatea also reports the intention of the PSD (social democratic party) to sue The Sun for the negative stories published about Romania.

The ‘media bomb’ ‘blasted’ by The Sun might be of less importance than Libertatea says. Searches with ‘Romania’, ‘Romanian’ and ‘tuberculosis’ on the newspaper’s site [EN] only produce a piece titled ‘1,500 migrants a day come in [EN]‘ dated November 3, where the issue of TB coming from Romania is reserved a single sentence, in a sloppy paragraph, towards the end.

• How it started