Bulgaria and Romania Take Their EU Seats. Big Broadcasters Are Already There.
First article in a series on media in the new EU Member States

Michael Hedges Jaunary 3, 2007

Big media companies discovered Bulgaria and Romania a half-decade or more before the accession treaty was drafted. Both countries quickly liberalized media and commercial laws confirming, if not precisely conforming to Western European practice. As if to keep one foot in the past, governments and their partners continued to see State broadcasters as State, and political, assets.

And it’s likely these will be the last two seats at the European table offered for a decade, if not a generation. Unlike the 2004 accession of ten new European Union Member States, celebrations now are far more muted.  Folks are saying all the polite things, hopeful things. Later this year, when memories of celebrations have faded, media watchers – from Brussels and elsewhere – will put the pressure on. The main issues will be copyrights, public broadcast funding and independence, regulator independence and standing Directives that impact media. The main non-issues will be media concentration, advertising standards and digital conversion.

If the 2004 accession is any guide, private sector media companies will continue to hope for a slow, protracted integration. A bit of chaos integrating media law, commercial law, labor law, broadcasting regulations and advertising rules with various European Commission Directives plays to the advantage of big Western media companies as well as local media bosses. And with billions of new euros government ministries spend first on protecting their futures with highly visible infrastructure projects, like highways, rather than a media plan. One exception is improved broadband access; quite good for business and answering all the emails from Brussels.

Already media in Bulgaria has consolidated around a handful of big companies. Several 2006 acquisitions by SBS Broadcasting (SBS), itself in process of integrating with ProSiebenSat1 and taking a larger home in Germany, increased the company’s radio broadcasting footprint to three national networks – Radio Express, Vitosha and Veselina – as well as local Sofia station Radio Atlantic and Radio Ritmo in Plovdiv.  TV Veselina was acquired with the radio network and SBS operates a digital music channel, relaunched in November 2006 as The Voice TV.

News Corporation is present in Bulgaria as owner of bTV, through its Balkan News Corporation subsidiary. The channel was launched in 2000 as Bulgaria’s first national independent commercial free-to-air television channel, privatizing Bulgarian State TV’s 2nd channel. News Corp also owns several radio stations: Classic FM, Jazz FM, NJoy and Z Rock.

The first privately owned television station Nova Televisia (Nova TV) became the second national television channel in 2003. The Greek company Antenna Group owns Nova TV. The company sold the Radio Express network to SBS Broadcasting. Antenna Group is the largest television producer in Greece.

Both commercial channels are invested in reality TV. Nova TV champions Big Brother while bTV has Survivor and Pop Idol.

The Bulgarian television market is not limited to these two big operators nor is terrestrial TV the only place to go.  Bulgarian National Television appears to have moved beyond years of management crisis and cautiously into its public service role. The 2006 estimated cable TV penetration among Bulgaria’s nearly 3 million households is 77% - higher than the EU average. All well-known TV franchises are represented and dozens of channels are local. Pay cable penetration also exceeds the EU average.

Radio Contact, a joint venture with RTL Belgique, was the first privately owned radio broadcaster in Bulgaria, launching in the mid-1990s.

Communicorp entered Bulgaria’s commercial radio market in 2004, first acquiring the Metromedia International stations when that tent folded. In 2006 it added three more for a total of six stations: Retro Radio, Radio Gong, NRJ, BG Radio, Nova and Radio One.

Emmis International added the Bulgarian FM Plus networks three channels to its European radio group in 2005, acquiring majority interest from local owners.

Romanian broadcast media has gone through less acquisition activity, numerically, though far more shuffling among different owners in the recent five years than those in Bulgaria. And Romania has nurtured its own brand of media mogul.

SBS Broadcasting most recently, September 2006, bought TV K Lumea, a music TV channel, renaming it KISS TV to co-brand with KISS FM. In March 2005 SBS bought KISS FM, Star FM and majority ownership of Prima TV from Cristian Burci. The two radio channels sold for €22.5 million and Burci’s 49% of Prima TV sold for €7.5 million. SBS rebranded Star FM as Magic FM. Burci had purchased Radio Contact from the aforementioned RTL Belgique joint venture in 2003, renaming it KISS FM.

Largadère Active Radio International (LARI) was the first major foreign broadcaster to take interest in Romania, launching Europa FM nation-wide in 1999. LARI also owns Radio 21, the highest rated radio station in Bucharest. In August 2006 Lagardère, through its European Development International Romania subsidiary (EDI), was awarded two television licenses set to launch in mid-2007.

Romanian media has two noteworthy and certifiable media moguls. One is Adrian Sarbu, now Central European Media Enterprises (CME) regional director for Czech, Romanian and Slovak operations. Mr. Sarbu founded MediaPro, then ProTV and has provided journalists endless copy about his charismatic, some say svengali, management approach. But his number one fan is CME CEO Mike Garin.

CME owns, mostly, Pro TV, Acasa TV and Pro Cinema. MediaPro owns Radio Pro, which mostly owns Pro FM and Info Pro, with CME taking a slice. Mr. Sarbu has long been a fixture in Romanian media, notably filming a TV documentary about the fall of the Ceausescu government and, later, serving as a government media advisor and then becoming a media entrepreneur. All of this has kept journalists and media watchers busy trying to unlock the secret to his success.

Political connections of Antena 1 owner Dan Voiculescu have also excited conspiracy theorists. Antena 1 is the second most watched TV channel in Romania and Voiculescu recently gave up day to day operations (to his daughter) for an active political life running the small Conservative Party. His company – Intact Media Group – also operates two other TV channels, including all-news Antena 3, radio station Romantic FM and several publications. Rumors surfaced last summer of RTL’s interest in the company but they remain only rumors.

By appearances local Bulgarian media owners have taken the opportunity pre-accession to sell out to bigger companies with money to spend. Many of the country’s radio stations, numbering about 100, and several smaller TV outlets remain in local hands. Romanian broadcast media owners have tended to hold their assets, until recently, or cut deals with major companies. Broadcast media dominates ad spending in both countries, the print sector still consolidating after the explosion of titles in the 1990’s followed by financial implosion.

The next article in this series looks at Bulgarian and Romanian public broadcasters and media regulators.

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