Antena Group GM: In two years' time, Antena 1 will beat Pro TV

In an interview for foreign publication TBI Vision, Sorin Alexandrescu, the general manager of Antena Group, part of Intact media group, said that in at most two years the media group he is leading will beat Pro TV, owned by Central Media Enterprises, in the ratings game.

“We are fighting with a group that has operations in several countries, which is owned by some big international players who hope they are going to be one of the strongest propositions in Central Europe, and somehow we have managed to be very competitive against them. Now we need to look at how we position ourselves within the market that we are playing in,” he said, quoted by Paginademedia.ro.

Alexandrescu believes that Intact’s local ownership, which is currently in the hands of Corina and Camelia Voiculescu, and the relationships with local talent will drive Antena 1 from second to first place.

“It’s too late for the competition to have a different strategy because over the past three years we have managed to get most of the stars available signed to us under our star system. More than 80 percent have a contract with us and the story has not ended yet. In no more than one year, I believe 90 percent of the most relevant talent will work with Intact and only Intact,” said the general manager.

The Romanian media company could start shopping its own shows internationally as more local content is produced, said Alexandrescu for TBI Vision.

The Antena Group general manager complained about “the weakness of the authorities.” We have a Competition Council Authority which is, I would say, quite favorable when it comes to all the problems that are created by one big Romanian operator – the biggest one,” said Alexandrescu for TBI Vision, alluding to RCS&RDS.

The two media companies have been at loggerheads various times over broadcasting issues.

On the other hand, Alexandrescu hopes to reach an understanding with Focus Sat. “I’m confident that we will reach an agreement with Focus Sat. I don’t want to put them in the same position as RCS & RDS. They are a different organization with different people. These are two very different cases,” said the Antena Group general manager.

Antena Group is also looking at launching a children’s channel in the future. “Kids would be quite perfect for our portfolio and could be one of the options we need to look quite deeply at for the future. It would be a new channel. But the most important thing at the moment is to strengthen the stations we have now,” said Alexandrescu.

As far as the short-term plans for this year are concerned, the Antena Group GM said Intact is committed to double-digit ratings growth.

“We can get there as we managed to make the steps for the growth until now, and I strongly believe that the overall situation is much more favorable than before as the overall platform we have is stronger. (…) The [advertising] cake is maybe not the best one, but there is a lot of room for us to grow in this market, by taking a bigger slice of it,” Alexandrescu told TBI Softvision.

Otilia Haraga

DMCA

PROTECTED