Aegis launches Vizeum in Romania with acquisition of local media company

Marketing communications group Aegis announces that it acquired Tempo Media in Romania and waiting local regulatory approval. Tempo Media was originally established as the media division of the Romanian full service agency Tempo Advertising, one of the leading independent full service advertising agencies, controlled by Dragos Grigoriu. Tempo Media has gross assets of €1.3m and in its portfolio has a mix of international clients such as URBB [Tuborg, Carlsberg, Skol, Orangina, Granini], Cetelem [BNP Paribas], Boom DTH and local such Alka, Nutline, Baneasa Investments and Kiwi Finance. Tempo Media will be integrated into Aegis Media, rebranding as Vizeum. Aegis is also present in Romania with another media agency Carat and research company, Synovate. Acording to

A second daily free sheet in Bucharest

RING is from monday on the market and is distributed in 50,000 copies in Bucharest [capital of Romania], through a street delivery network and waiting entrance of the subways. The newspaper has 16 pages full-color, compact format [290 x 400 mm]. It has a classic structure of a moderate tabloid: events, politics, social, services, show-biz, magazine, sports and special news. Sports and show-biz sections are the most substantial. Ring is edited by Confort Media SRL a company owned by two young romanian antreprenors and brothers [Robert and Ionut Negoita] with expertize in real estate business, hospitality [few hotels] and commercial operations [carpet retail] and this is their project to enter in the media business.

Ring’s editor in chief is Alexandru David, an ex editor of gossip weekly VIP, and he is running a team of 40 people: 28 on the editorial sector and 12 on the non-editorial activities. Advertising sales information is not yet known. On the web, the newspaper’s domain is supposed to be ziarulring.ro. The investment in the media segment is was announced by owners at around 10 million euros in 2 years, and this move is first

EUR 35 million for Champions League TV rights in Romania

The Romanian Public Television has won the auction for the rights of transmitting in Romania the first option of the Champions League [tuesday & wednesday] football games exclusively and also the summery of all the football games. TVR will, as well, transmit the semifinals and the final. The public television pays EUR 35 million for a period of three years, including the seasons 2009-2010, 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 and  the winner was announced on Monday 31st March, by TEAMM, UEFA’s representative.

The Romanian Public Televison owns the rights of Europe’s Supercup, a competition between the winner of Champions League and the winner of UEFA Cup. DTH Boom TV won the second option, having the rights of transmitting the games that are not included in TVR’s platform, the replays and the summaries of the football games. TVR is re-engaged in the transmitting of Champions League after 9 years (1992-1999), during which Pro TV [CME] has transmitted the games.

The public television owns the rights of transmitting some important sport competitions at

85 millions euro for broadcasting rights of romanian First League matches

Consortium of romanian broadcaster Intact and communications company RCS RDS will pay 85 millions euro [+ VAT 19%] for the next tree years broadcasting rights of Romania’s First League football matches [seasons 2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010-2011], in a public auction organized Monday by Football League Association [Liga Profesionista de Fotbal / LPF]

Final price: 85 millions euro + VAT [102 millions] >> 28,3 millions euro per season +TVA
Starting price: 54 millions euro+ TVA [64,2 millions] >> 18 millions euro per season +TVA
Variation: + 57% from starting price.

Intact, which controls commercial TV channel Antena 1, received a license for a sports channel earlier this year [Arenna TV] and RCS-RDS has a DTH platform [Digi TV] with 600,000 subscribers. Intact [Antena 1] won in front of

Chief editor of Ringier romanian “Evenimentul Zilei” resigned

Razvan Ionescu, editor-in-chief of one of the most important quality daily romanian newspapers “Evenimentul Zilei” resigned yesterday. He sent an e-mail to Ringier’s management in which he accused the fact that the management wasn’t enough involved in sustained the newspaper in the last years. He is leaving current position after more than 3 years and in his mandate EVZ was transformed in best designed Romanian newspaper but it lost premier position in quality segment on behalf of Jurnalul National [edited by romanian Intact Group owned by Voiculescu Family].  This leaving is one of last mouvements in Ringier Romanian division of reference newspapers [daily Evenimentul Zilei and business weekly Capital] after Iulia Dinu [head of Division] and Cristi Mihalache [head of advertising sales]. In Romania Ringier is most important publisher with tabloid Libertatea [leader of the market], quality Evenimentul and weekly Capital and also a division of magazines.

See below some fragments of Ionescu’s leaving email:
“I have presented Ringier’s management my resignation from the editor in chief position of Evz. I have informed Marius Hagger, the new general director of Ringier Romania. I truly regret that I have chosen this way of announcing you that in a short period of time I will be leaving Evz. All I have to say is that it has been a difficult decision to make.

I’m leaving Evz because this newspaper hasn’t evolved, commercially speaking, in the past years.  The distribution, marketing and sales strategies of this newspaper have never been accomplished

cinema city: aggressive entrance in romania

One of the most important cinemas operators in the south-east Europe is entering aggressively on the Romanian market: Cinema City International, based in Netherlands and operating in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria and Israel, company listed over a year ago at the stock exchange market in Warsaw [Poland].

The first cinema city multiplex has been launched in Iasi [Iulius Mall, 5 screens, 830 seats] on the 16th November, the next being available in Timisoara starting 30th  November and two are being ongoing in Cluj [Iulius Mall] and Baia Mare [Gold Plaza/2.300 mp/8 halls]. The company has announced the opening of another three multiplex cinemas in shopping galleries in Arad, Bistrita and Galati and five in Bucharest, developed by real-estate Globe Trade Center. On the international level, Cinema City has in its portfolio 61 multiplex centers [508 screens], recording incomes of 80, 3 million euros in the first quarter of 2007.

In Romania [european country with lowest number of spectators], most important players are Movieplex Cinema [ subsiadiary of movieplex italy] and Hollywood Multiplex [part of local Media Pro Group, owned by COO CME, Adrian Sarbu]. Also greek operator Odeon [85 screens/ 9,000 seets in greece] anounced an investment of  20 million euro in Cluj [4 multiplex/ 8 screens/ 1,640 de seats].

free business daily E 15 in Prague

Mlada Fronta AS, a privately owned Czech publisher, said it will launch a free daily business newspaper in late November. E15 ["15 Minutes for Economy and Business"] will report on business, economy, politics, environment and life style, focusing on managers and staff of leading companies in Prague. the paper will be published five times a week with an initial circulation of 50,000 copies and with a similar concept of London’s City A.M . its editor-in-chief will be Tomas Skrivanek, former deputy editor-in-chief of the Euro business weekly. there are now three free daily papers available in Prague - Metro, Metropolitni Expres and 24 hodin. E15 may add pressure on the Hospodarske Noviny [partly owned by the publisher of german Handelsblatt], only czech business daily newspaper. [sources: Czech News Agency /Associated Press]

inform is entering like an expres train in romania

 

the fourth edition of Romanian free daily Expres, was launched in Cluj, one of the biggest city in Romania. Inform Media printed the newspaper in 25 000 copies and the next week will reach 30,000 copies, and from November, to 35,000 copies, being distributed through paperboys and by boxes. Andrea Lukic, the publisher, says that the gradual circulation is necessary in order to establish the proper way of distributing the newspaper. Cluj Expres is the second free paper launched in 2007 (after Hunedoara Expres launched in september); the first titles were launched in 2005: Timis Expres (35,000 copies distributed in march 2007) and arad express (10,000 copies distributed in march 2007).

Inform Media, one of the most important romanian local media groups and part of the austrian group Vorarlberger Medienhaus, has announced few months ago the opening of a new printing house in Alba Iulia (after the one in Timisoara); their portfolio includes both free and paid newspapers. Inform has four newspapers in top 10 local paid newspaper, two of which are Magyar and is competing with germans form EMI/ArboMedia and local Publimedia [part of Media Pro Group]. the annual average sales of inform products are:
Adevarul Arad [23,266]/romanian language
Jurnal Bihorean  [13,293]/ romanian language
Bihari Naplo [12,906]/ hungarian language
Szatmari Fiss Usjag [10,404]/ hungarian language
Timpul [7,307] / romanian language
Cuvantul Liber [6,042]/ romanian language

ringier takes over czech newspaper Aha!

One more movement after the one in Serbia from ringier who buys also the czech daily newspaper Aha! from Ebika and in the same time the whole editorial team, consolidating its position as leader on the dailies market in the country. Ringier also owns the most successfully sold daily in Czech Republic, Blesk, which has a sales average of 444,000 copies and an audience of 1,548,000 readers (2006) and the sports daily Sport with sales of 67,000 and audience of 297,000 readers (source: wan/world press trends). Aha was launched in October 2004 and has recorded average sales of 140,022 copies per edition in august 2007, due to a circulation of 211,477 and an audience of 347,000 readers.

a romanian appointed COO for american media company CME

The American company Central European Media Enterprises (CME) has announced the appointment of Adrian Sarbu as operational director (COO) of the entire group. This is the first major promotion of a Romanian executive in the management of a company that is listed on the international stock exchange market [Nasdaq/ US and presently is worth 3,5 billion dollars].

CME operates many TV stations in Central and East Europe - Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Ukraine. The group is owned by the Ronald Lauder. Last year, the company registered a total income of 603 million dollars and an operational profit (EBITDA) of 218 million dollars. During the last year, Adrian Sarbu has been coordinating directly the operations in Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have brought, according to the final statistics in 2006, 70% of the turn over and 85% of the operational income.

Sarbu says that he accepted this position due to the fact that he was bound to CME, both as manager and as partner. “In 1994, Ronald Lauder was the only man that helped me redefining PRO TV. Last year, when CME needed my experience as well as my time in order to bring the operations in Czech Republic and Slovakia at the Pro TV’s level of quality, I agreed to take this responsibility. Also, assuming the new position is first of all a moral duty to my partners”, stated Adrian Sarbu in a interview for Romanian news agency Mediafax [part of his media group Media Pro Group].

CME and the present general director (CEO) of the company, Michael Garin has encouraged the promoting of the regional managers, who were allowed over the years to manage the operations by their own rules. “During the four years of my running CME, the numbers of directors in Central and East Europe has increased to the top management level. The financial power of CME increased due to the fact that these managers have a great know-how of these countries and also great professional abilities. CME is different from the majority of the international television companies because all of our TV station directors are coming from the country in which we operate. This makes me really proud”, said Garin cited also by Mediafax.

In the press release of CME in which is announced the appointment of Adrian Sarbu, he stated: “I spent the last ten years in CME and I know from my own experience how talented our TV stations directors are. I am honored that I have the privilege of working with these people. The most important lesson that I have learnt during these years is that obtaining performance year by year is always acknowledged. CME and the local management teams will continue to focus on the increasing the profit and development of new opportunities in the markets where CME is presently operating and also beyond them”.