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…

High ratings on the public channel, due to Euro 2008

The first channel of the public television achieved high ratings and more than 50% market share due to the Romania-France broadcast on June 9th (final result: 0-0). The first half of the match had 2,664,000 viewers in average (market share: 58,9%), and the second achieved 2,971,000 viewers (share: 57,8%) - target all urban, GfK peoplemeter data. The ratings are remarkable following the continuous drop in audience of the public television during the last year. TVR 1, the first channel of the public television, fell to the 4th or 5th place in terms of monthly averages, virtually equal to the audience of the main rolling news television in Romania, Realitatea TV. The traditional position on the market of TVR1 was the 3rd place, after the leading commercial stations, Pro TV and Antena 1.

Romania-France ratings on June 9th. Source: GfK data processed by TVR

Other matches such as Holland-Italy or Sweden-Greece, broadcast by TVR 1, also acheived good ratings.

According to some voices on the market, the drop in audience is due to | More…

The public television started to broadcast in HD

The Romanian public television started its HD broadcast on June 1st 2008, according to a press release. The broadcast is experimental and viewable on channel 59/DVB-t, or satellite with a Viaccess 2.6 card. TVR HD is the 2nd Romanian channel broadcasting in high definition, after Pro TV, the leading commercial station.

Top 10 TV, February

According to GfK data processed by Realitatea TV, the most viewed 10 TV stations in Romania are:

1. PRO TV - 310.000/348.000 (CME/Sârbu, commercial)
2. Antena 1 - 228.000/219.000 (Voiculescu, commercial)
3. Acasă TV - 207.000/179.000 (CME/Sârbu, commercial, women)
4. Realitatea TV - 112.000/129.000 (Vîntu, niche, rolling news)
5. TVR 1 - 111.000/126.000 (public)
6. Prima TV - 104.000/110.000 (SBS, commercial, strong international reality shows programming)
7. Kanal D - 87.000/87.000 (Dogan, commercial)
8. OTV - 75.000/80.000 (Dan Diaconescu, tabloid)
9. Antena 3 - 73.000/74.000 (Voiculescu, niche, rolling news)
10. Naţional TV - 58.000/58.000 (Micula Brothers, commercial).

The figures are ratings in thousands of viewers (February/January), daily average, all urban. Starting January 1st 2008, the audience data have been provided by GfK Romania, which won the auction against the former audience provider, TNS-AGB Romania. The panel has been increased from 1000 to 1200 households and DTH has been taken into account according to its growing spread. The new GfK system has increased some niche station ratings by | More…

Dogan has some further expansion plans in Romania

After launching Kanal D Romania in February 2007, the Turkish group Dogan has some further expansion plans into Romania. According to statements by Begum Dogan, Turkish billionaire Aydin Dogan’s daughter and the top executive of Dogan in Romania, the company is planning some other investments, both in the TV field and other businesses. In a story that is to be published tomorrow by the Money Express business weekly, Begum Dogan says Dogan will further develop Kanal D, launched as a general interest TV station, and invest into some TV niches, both taken over from existing owners and newly-launched.

Kanal D was launched in February 2007 with a team of famous TV stars transferred from the leader of the commercial market, Pro TV, and the public television, and with a tabloid-entertainment schedule. The ratings achieved were below | More…

Three new niche TV stations controlled by the Voiculescu family

Intact/Antena/Jurnalul, one of the major players on the Romanian media market has plans for three or four new niche stations, according to Broadband TV News. An unofficial source confirmed for Comanescu.ro the plans are real, but, instead of the four stations mentioned by Broadband TV News (children, cooking, men, music), said there will be three niche TV’s: children, music, sports.

Intact/Antena/Jurnalul is a group founded by Dan Voiculescu, one of the richest Romanians and an ex-secret police (Securitate) informer. It includes four TV stations (Antena 1 - general, 2nd position on the market, Antena 2 - talk-shows, Antena 3 - News, Euforia Lifestyle TV - women glossy), and other important media assets, such as the 2nd more important general interest newspaper, Jurnalul, and the best sports newspaper, Gazeta sporturilor. The group is today owned mainly by Voiculescu’s daughters, Camelia and Corina. There are no foreign associates, although reports about some discussions with RTL, Permira (an investment fund) and the greeks from Antenna have surfaced.

Some other news about future projects at Voiculescu have also spread in the past, with no results so far.

Lucian Mândruţă, one of the primetime news anchors at Antena 1

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…

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.

Inventory of the Romanian TV niches: an obvious increase

Launches of Antena 2, Kanal D and Romantica indicate that on the Romanian TV market interesting events keep happening in terms of niche. The channels established in 2007, but also in the past recent years, indicate a diversification of the TV offer. The broadcast niches in Romania are not yet profitable but they have started to gain more and more viewers. A number of stations belonging in general to the big media owners in Romania have started to appear out of the blue.

Romanian TV niches

The “n.a.” results in the table above, compiled by Antena 1 from official data provided by TNS-AGB, most of the time show the absence of the television in April 2006. | More…