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…

Lauders’s CME acquired Adrian Sârbu’s radio assets

Central European Media Enterprises (CME) announced today the take-over of Compania de Radio Pro SRL, owned by one of the “big five” on the Romanian media market, Adrian Sârbu, for 20,6 million US dollars (47,2 million RON or 14 million euros). Compania de Radio Pro includes two radios: Info Pro (news) and Pro FM (contemporary hits, with several recently launched spinoffs - Dance, Alternative, Black, Love). Launched in 1993, Pro FM delivered in 2007 revenues of 3,3 million euros, with an EBITDA margin of 42%. Info Pro entered the FM spectrum in 2004 and had 0,6 mllion euros revenues in 2007, with an EBITDA loss of 1,0 million.

CME is Adrian Sârbu’s traditional partner and currently holds 95% of the TV businesses run by Sârbu, with a leading position on the Romanian market (Pro TV, Acasă TV, Pro TV Internațional, Pro Cinema, MTV Romania, Sport.ro). CME also mentioned a 8,7% participation in the Media Pro Group, which operates Sârbu’s print, radio and internet businesses. Adrian Sârbu has been appointed last year as CME’s COO.

The CME press release: | 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…

The Voiculescu group, to launch a new FM station

Antena/Intact/Jurnalul, one of the big media groups on the Romanian market, is to launch News FM during the 2nd half of October 2007. Antena/Intact already owns Romantic FM, an adult oriented radio, and is more succesful on the TV and newspapers market. While Antena 1 holds the 2nd position in the top of the commercial televisions, Gazeta Sporturilor is the leader of the sports newspapers market, and Jurnalul naţional is the 2nd most sold general interest newspaper in Romania.

News FM will broadcast on 89 MHz and will have a news profile. Some other attempts to launch news stations on the Romanian radio market didn’t end up with high ratings. The dominant type of radio is contemporary hits, quite successful at stations like Radio 21 (Lagardere) or Kiss FM (SBS).

The Antena/Intact/Jurnalul group also owns three niche TV stations and various print titles. It’s the greatest purely Romanian media group on the market, the same size with Media Pro (95% CME) and Ringier (Swiss). The managers have started various negotiations with RTL, the Antenna group (Greece) and Permira (an investment fund). There are no even sale intentions, however.

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 radio stations market shares

The public national radio stays the most popular in Romania, according to the latest Association for Radio Audience (ARA) figures, resulted from the autumn research (Sept. 4-Oct. 29, 2006). Radio 21 (Lagardere) takes the lead on the Bucharest market, while Europa FM (Lagardere), Kiss FM (SBS) and Pro FM (Sîrbu-MediaPro) are strong players on all the markets. The national market shares pie:

Bucharest and Urban shares; stations ownership: | More…

Romanian manager warning: You need some patience with people in Romania, big guys!

Potential foreign investors should prepare a serious patience supply in order to enter the Romanian media market, Aurelian Amuraritei, the former executive director of ‘Adevarul’ said, in an ymterviu (interview by yahoo messenger) with this author on Blog.HotNews.ro. ‘Romanian market does need specialists, training, know-how, technology, but also lots of patience,’ Amuraritei said. ‘The market, the journalists, the owners are hardly prepared for radical changes.’

Aurelian Amuraritei also said he is taking into account three offers for three important companies in Romania, and also disclosed he’s interested in television, after two top positions in print companies (Ringier Romania and ‘Adevarul’).

• ymterviu.010 with Aurelian Amuraritei (RO)