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…

Romanian televisions market shares in 2006

The highest market share TV stations in Romania are the first channel of the public television, TVR 1 (16,8 %), and two commercial TV stations, Pro TV (15,8 %) and Antena 1 (13,6 %), according to TNS-AGB data for national, whole day, processed and provided by Antena 1.

While the public television has lost some of its audience since the beginning of the decade and has been undermined by political scandals in the meanwhile, Pro TV is the first successful commercial TV station in Romania, launched on December 1st 1995. | More…

The Big 5 on the Romanian media market

The circulation figures published earlier this week by BRAT [RO] (the Romanian ABC) are relevant for the changes in the Romanian media during the last year. Nine of the 11 daily titles that presented data for July-September 2006 are controlled by Ringier Romania, Dan Voiculescu, Dinu Patriciu and Adrian Sîrbu, a situation that shows a clear sign of concentration of the media ownership in Romania in the hands of ‘Five Big’ companies. The ‘Fifth Big’ is Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, due to ‘Cotidianul’, an unaudited newspaper with some potential, and some other media assets.

Together with the distribution of ‘Compact’, Ringier Romania’s free newspaper, and also including unaudited titles or titles that haven’t presented their latest figures yet, the entire national daily newspapers market raises to around 950,000 sold/distributed copies per day, for a population of 21,6 million inhabitants. Taking into consideration this approximate, but however relevant total, Dinu Patriciu holds, with ‘Averea’ and ‘Adevărul’, a 5,2 % market share (almost 50,000 sold copies for the two newspapers). Adrian Sîrbu also has roughly 4,8 % of the market with ‘Gândul’ and ‘Ziarul financiar’, while Dan Voiculescu controls a 14,6 % share, with the 141,000 sold copies of ‘Jurnalul naţional’ and ‘Gazeta sporturilor’ sports newspaper. | More…

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…

Another Mediapro site to be relaunched on Monday

Acasatv.ro (RO), the site of the very successful soap operas Romanian television Acasa TV, will be relaunched on Monday, November 13th. The Acasa TV PR stated in a press release the new site will bring users increased interactivity, photo and video galleries, while keeping the popular forum.

Launched in 1988 by Media Pro International, a company presently owned by CME (90 %) and Adrian Sîrbu (10 %), which also includes Pro TV, the most successful Romanian TV station, Acasa TV achieved in several years a general commercial status, with average ratings placing it sometimes above the first channel public television (TVR 1). Presently, it has a market share of 5-7 % and achieves good ratings with Romanian south-American style soaps such as “Daria, iubirea mea” or “Iubire ca in filme”. Acasatv.ro was placed on Saturday, November 11th, the 31st place in the mass media top on Trafic.ro, the Romanian unofficial Internet rating

• Acasa TV new daily schedule, launched on November 6 (EN), links to CME, background
• Soap operas Iubirecainfilme.ro and Dariaiubireamea.ro launched (EN)

Bigger images of the two sites: | More…

Human resources crisis on the Romanian media market

Money can’t buy you happiness for sure on the Romanian media market. Three of the richest and most controversial Romanians, Dinu Patriciu, Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu and Dan Voiculescu, launched or disclosed plans for launching new titles on the print media market, TV stations or Internet sites this year. Their plans brought the market on the fringe of a human resources crisis.

Latest buzz: Patriciu went to Vîntu and Voiculescu to propose a mutual agreement, in order to avoid reciprocal HR damage… | More…

Turkish group Dogan Media’s expansion into Romania: high-profile Romanian in top position

A high-profile Romanian will hold a key position in the Turkish media group Dogan’s business in Romania, one source close to the company’s management told Comanescu.ro. Dogan is planning a massive expansion in Europe and will launch an entertainment channel, Kanal D, on Romanian cable networks next spring. Involvement of Dogan Media on the Romanian market has aroused a great deal of discussions among managers in other Romanian TV companies. According to the rumors, Dogan is aiming high and has lots of money to achieve its purposes.

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)

6 hours/day soap operas at Acasa TV, starting today

Starting today, Acasa TV will program six hours of soap operas between 18.30 and 0.30. The program includes the Argentinian soap ‘Rebelde’, a show with Natalia Oreiro and Facundo Arana, the Romanian soap ‘Iubire ca in filme’ (’Hollywood Love’), and a Gabriela Spanic soap.

Acasa TV, a successful women channel launched by Mediapro International (10 % Adrian Sarbu, 90 % CME - Central European Media Enterprises) in 1998 as a niche station and started reaching a high audience after 2000. After Adrian Sarbu was appointed the Central Europe manager for CME, he sold to some Eastern Europe televisions two of the shows produced by Acasa TV.

• CME operations in Romania (CME site, EN)
• Acasa TV press release (RO) | More…

Romanian soap opera site

‘Iubire ca in filme’ (approx. translation: ‘Hollywood Love’), one of the soap operas produced by Media Pro Studios, has an Internet site at www.iubirecainfilme.ro. The site launching, announced today by the broadcasting station’s PR, comes after the establishment of a strong new media division inside one of the most important television and print media holdings in Romania, Media Pro. At the end of this Summer, a dozen of managers from Boom/Netbridge (strong Romanian software developer, ad broker, site designer) left the company to form Media Pro Interactive, the Internet division of Media Pro or the so-called ‘Pro’ empire. Media Pro is a conglomerate of companies run by Romanian media visionary Adrian Sarbu, and controlled by CME (Central European Media Enterprises).

UPDATE Nov. 7: Acasa TV announced the launching of the site belonging to the 2nd Romanian soap running, www.dariaiubireamea.ro (’Daria, my love’).

The Media Pro empire includes: | More…