Media of Romania

The media of Romania refers to mass media outlets based in the Republic of Macedonia. Television, magazines, and newspapers are all operated by both state-owned and for-profit corporations which depend on advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues. The Constitution of Romania guarantees freedom of speech. As a country in transition, the Romanian media system is under transformation.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Romania 42nd in its Worldwide Press Freedom Index, from 2013. The public television company Televiziunea Română and the public radio Societatea Română de Radiodifuziune cover all the country and have also international programs. The state also owns a public news agency ROMPRES. The private media is grouped in media companies such as Intact Media Group, Media Pro, Realitatea-Caţavencu, Ringier, SBS Broadcasting Group, Centrul Naţional Media and other smaller independent companies. Cable television is widely available in almost all localities, and some have even adopted Digital television. It offers besides the national channels a great number of international and specialized channels. FM stations cover most cities and most of them belong to national radio networks. Overall readership of most newspapers is slowly declining due to increasing competition from television and the Internet. Tabloids and sport newspapers are among the most read national newspapers. In every large city there is at least one local newspaper, which usually covers the rest of the county. An Audit Bureau of Circulations was established in 1998 and today represents a large number of publications.

History

Romania has one of the most dynamic media markets in southeastern Europe. TV is the medium of choice for most Romanians. State-owned TVR and the private stations Pro TV and Antena 1 command the lion's share of viewing, however there is a large number of smaller, private stations, some of them part of local networks. The state broadcaster, TVR, operates a second national network, TVR 2, and a pan-European satellite channel. Pay TV channels have a smaller but significant audience.

The first private radio stations appeared in 1990; there are now more than 100 of them. State-run Radio Romania operates four national networks and regional and local stations. BBC World Service is available on 88 FM in the capital, and is relayed in Timișoara (93.9), Sibiu (88.4) and Constanta (96.9).

Most households in Bucharest have cable TV. There are hundreds of cable distributors offering access to Romanian, European and other stations.

Romania's newspaper market thrived after the 1989 revolution, but many newspapers subsequently closed because of rising costs.

The 2003 constitution upholds freedom of expression, but prohibits "defamation of the country".

In 2007 the media rights body Reporters Without Borders praised reforms to the criminal code; journalists can no longer be jailed on defamation charges.

According to europaworld.com, in 2004 there were:

• radio users: 5,369,000
• television users: 5,822,000
• telephones (main lines in use): 4,390,800 (2005)
• mobile cellular phones (subscribers): 22,000,000 (2008)
• personal computers: 2,450,000
• internet users: 4,500,000
• book production (inclusively pamphlets): 13,288,000 titles and 9,288,000 copies
• daily newspapers: 84
• other periodicals: 2,036

In November 2008, the number of registered .ro domains was over 340,000, of which 315,000 were active. This represents an increase of 50% in a single year.

Media outlets

Print media

Main article: List of Romanian newspapers

See also: Category:Romanian magazines and Romanian magazines

See also: Category:Romanian journalists and Romanian journalists

The Romanian print press market is rich and diversified. The National Institute of Statistics (NIS) counted up to 300 newspaper publishers in 2007, of which 159 dailies, and over 350 magazine publishers. 300 of them are audited by the Romanian Audit Bureau of Circulation (BRAT), hence gaining in credibility and advertising revenues.

The quality segment includes title such as Adevarul, Gandul (MediaPro), Evenimentul zilei (Ringier), Romania libera (WAZ/Dan Adamescu), Jurnalul National (Intact). Their circulation numbers remain low in relation to popular tabloids such as Click (Adevarul Holding), that in 2009 distributed 236,000 copies (more than all the quality press combined), Can Can or Libertatea (Ringier). Sport newspapers include Gazeta Sporturilor, owned by Intact, and ProSport, belonging to MediaPro. Business dailies include Ziarul Financiar, published by MediaPro, Business Standard (Realitatea-Catavencu) and Financiarul (Intact).

Local newspapers are usually not backed by big investors, and thus remain vulnerable to political and commercial pressures. The main ones include Gazeta de Sud in Craiova, Tribuna in Sibiu, Ziarul in Iasi, Viata libera in Galati and Transilvania Expres in Brasov. Readership has been in decline, among lacking professionalisation and poor distribution.

Magazines are a thriving segment. Some are spin-offs of popular newspapers, such as Libertatea or Click. Women's weeklies, TV guides and business weeklies (Business Magazin, Money Express, Saptamana financiara, Capital) also make good revenues. Glossy magazines and international franchises complete the scene. Academia Catavencu is a cult satirical weekly.

Radio broadcasting

Main article: List of radio stations in Romania

Private FM stations dominate the market in romania, with more than 700 licenses from the National Broadcasting Council by 2009. Two networks achieved national ccoverage: Europa FM (owned by the French group Lagardere) and Info Pro (CME). The most popular private networks are Radio Zu (Intact), Radio 21 (Lagardere), ProFM (CME), Kiss FM (ProSiebenSat1), relying mostly on advertisement revenues, and broadcasting musical hits, entertainment, and short news bulletins.

The public company Radio România manages five national stations: Radio România Actualităţi (news), Radio România Cultural (culture and arts),Radio România Muzical (music), Radio Antena Satelor (farming and rural communities), and Radio 3Net - "Florian Pittiş" (a youth station broadcasting online). It also holds an international station (Radio Romania International) and a regional network of 12 stations (Radio România Regional), including Radio Iași and Radio Cluj. Radio România also includes the news agency Rador, a publishing house, a radio theatre production department, several orchestras and choirs.

Television broadcasting

Main article: Television in Romania

Romanian television is dominated by a small number of corporations, owning multiple TV channels as well as radio stations, newspapers and media agencies. Their television business is structured around a flagship channel and a number of smaller specialized, niche channels. The biggest corporations of this kind are:

• Intact Media Group (with Antena 1-Antena 5),
• Central European Media Enterprises (with Pro TV, Acasă, Pro Cinema, Pro TV Internaţional and Sport.ro)
• Realitatea-Catavencu (with Realitatea TV, Romantica and The Money Channel)
• Centrul Naţional Media (with Naţional TV, N24 and Favorit TV)
• SBS Broadcasting Group (with Prima TV and Kiss TV).

The TV public service broadcaster is Televiziunea Română, with four channels (TVR 1, TVR 2, TVR Cultural and TVR i) and there are many localized or franchised international channels (such as HBO, MTV, Cinemax, AXN, Cartoon Network). Furthermore, there are a few independent and local broadcasters.

Two private stations, Pro TV and Antena 1, are market leaders, sharing about 32% of the market, with public television in the third place. A feature of Romanian Television after 2000 was the boom of specialized channels.

Television broadcasts and cable television, frequency allocations, content monitoring and license allocation are done by the National Audiovisual Council (Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului, CNA).

Romania has very high penetration rates for cable television in Europe, with over 79% of all households watching television through a CATV network in 2007. The market is extremely dynamic, and dominated by two giant companies - Romanian based RCS&RDS and United States based UPC-Astral. Broadcast television is very limited because of the high penetration of cable. In the early 1990s, only two state owned TV channels were available, one only in about 20% of the country. Private TV channels were slow to appear, because of lack of experience and high start-up costs. In this environment, cable TV companies appeared and thrived, providing 15-20 foreign channels for a very low price. Many small, startup firms gradually grew, and coverage increased (coverage wars were frequent in the early period). However, this period soon ended, with consolidation around 1995-1996 with gentlemen agreements between larger companies over areas of control and pricing, with claims of monopoly abounding. This process of consolidation was completed around 2005-2006, when only two big suppliers of cable remained: UPC-Astral and RDS. Cable TV is now available in most of the country, including most rural areas. Satellite digital TV appeared in 2004.

Cinema

Cinema is one of the least popular forms of entertainment in Romania, and over 100 cinema theatres have closed down since 1989. Romania has the lowest number of cinema goers in Europe. 75 active cinemas were counted in 2008 (down from 155 in 2004), more than half being outdated theatres owned by the public company Romaniafilm. New multiplex cinemas have been opening in shopping malls, including Hollywood Multiplex, Movieplex Cinema, and Cinema City Romania. Over 85% of tickets are for US blockbusters, with only 3.6% in 2008 for domestic Romanian film productions.

Telecommunications

Romania has rapidly improving domestic and international services, especially in wireless telephony. The domestic network offers good, modern services in urban areas; 98% of telephone network is automatic while 71% is digitized; trunk network is mostly fiber-optic cable and radio relay; about 80% of exchange capacity is digital. Roughly 3,300 villages have outdated or no service.

International service data:

• satellite country code: 40;
• satellite earth station: 10 (Intelsat 4);
• digital, international, direct-dial exchanges operate in Bucharest.

The combined (fixed+mobile) telephone penetration rate is 108.3%.

See also Romania Telephone Area Codes.

Land lines

There are 4,106,000 main lines in use (June 2007). Romtelecom is the dominant fixed line provider (around 80% of the market share) and the only POTS provider. Other providers are RCS&RDS and UPC Romania.

Mobile

There were 22.600.000 SIM cards active by December 2013. There are three GSM cellular networks (Orange, Vodafone and Cosmote) covering more than 85% of the territory (about 98% of the population), one UMTS only (Digi.Mobil) as well as one CDMA2000 only network (Romtelecom). Five networks, meaning Vodafone, Orange, Digi.Mobil, Cosmote and Zapp also provide UMTS (3G) services. Vodafone, Orange, Digi.Mobil provides voice and data services over their UMTS (3G) networks, as long as Zapp provives only data services Cosmote provides voice and data services via Zapp UMTS network. Mobile telephony had an 108% penetration rate in March 2008.

Media Organisations

Media agencies

• AGERPRES [1]
• AM Press [2]
• Amos News [3]
• Mediafax [4]
• NewsIn [5]
• RADOR [6]

Internet

Main article: Internet in Romania

See also

• Romania
• List of channels on UPC Romania Digital in Romania

External links

• BBC NEWS country profile: Romania