Week 32: The losses of Romanian televisions, internet usage in Romania and World Cup Ratings

The advertising sales of Romanian televisions dropped by 33% from last year, WAZ sold its participation in Romania and Romanian internet users prefer news sites to social networks. The World Cup final scored the best TV ratings in July, on the first channel of the public television.

• The Romanian televisions reported the biggest decrease ever, in 2009: the total sales fell 33% from a year earlier to 241 mil. euros, according to figures released by the National Trade Register Office published by Dailybusiness.ro. Total losses of the industry amounted 70 mil. Euros last year, with advertising spending falling by third year-on-year, according to dailybusiness.ro. Most of the national networks reported losses, while they cut 370 jobs last year. Among them were PRO TV SA – a company controlled by US-owned Central European Media Entreprises (CME), SBS Broadcasting Media ( owned by German-based ProSiebenSat.1), Kanal D -a company under control of Turkey’s Dogan Media and the stations owned by local businessmen Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu and Paunescu family. The only group that posted profit was Voiculescu family’s Intact. Anyway, the Intact profit was 1.4 mil. Euros, down 79 per cent year on year.
• The businessman Dan Adamescu signed with the German media group WAZ the purchase of half of the company Medien Holding, the publisher of România liberă and other magazines, thus becoming sole owner in this business, according to ZF.ro. “It is a good time to buy. Considering that Western markets have already rebounded, we believe that the economy will come through the crisis next year”, stated the business man, quoted in Ziarul Financiar.
  According to German business newspaper Handelsblatt, the CEO of Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitungsverlagsgesellschaft (WAZ), Bodo Hombach, said the German media group could pull all its operations out of Balkans. He said “there is no place” for WAZ in South-Eastern Europe, suggesting the media business is hampered by local officials and oligarchs. WAZ Balkan’s operations are located, now, in Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Croatia.
• According to a survey made by the website audience monitoring service trafic.ro, Romanian internet users in their majority (72%) are interested in online newspapers and magazines, 53% incline towards socializing networks, Hi5, LinkedIn or Facebook, while 43% of the access employment sites. A quarter of the Romanian internet users are different types of managers and 24% students, as claimed by the survey quoted by Realitatea.net.
• The World Cup final, Spain vs. Holland, got the best TV rating for July in urban TV homes, 17,8%, with 2 mil. viewers, Paginademedia.ro reported. The first ten positions belong to football matches, most of them (8 of 10) live coverage of South Africa competition.

Press review provided by KMP Translations