Television in Romania

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For criticism see Criticism of Television_in_Romania

Television in Romania was introduced in 1956.

Accorting to an article on the Romanian newspaper Adevărul, the top TV broadcasters were (based on the average prime-time number of viewers in Oct-Nov 2007): Pro TV (with 615.000 viewers), TVR1 (451.000), Antena 1 (305.000), OTV (272.000), Acasă TV (247.000), Prima TV (205.000), Realitatea TV (102.000) and Antena 3 (73.000).[1]

Contents

Cable television

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.[2] The market is extremely dynamic, and dominated by two giant companies - Romanian based RCS&RDS and U.S. based UPC-Astral. Both additionally offer IP telephony over coaxial cable and Internet services. The national CATV network is being improved, and most households are being migrated towards digital cable solutions. Digital DTH satellite service is available throughout the country, and accounts for an additional 10-15% of the market, with only about 5% being attributed to terrestrial analogue television. Digital satellite DTH is provided by a number of companies. It is possible that Romania will not migrate to digital terrestrial systems, but completely discontinue this service, since the said investments provide limited appeal.

The reasons for this appeal started in the early '90s. After the fall of the communist regime, in 1989, there was only one state owned TV channel available (see TVR), a second channel being closed in 1985 (see TVR2). Private TV channels were slow to appear, because of lack of experience and high start-up costs (most startups were radio stations or newspapers). Thus, for the first three years, over the air, one would get one or two state channels and one or two local, amateurish private channels, broadcasting only a few hours a day. In this environment, cable TV companies appeared and thrived, providing 15-20 foreign channels for a very low price (at the time 2 USD or less), some with Romanian translation, offering high quality news, entertainment and especially movies or cartoons (one of the ways cable companies advertised was the availability of a cartoon channel, Cartoon Network, appealing to children, which in turn would appeal to their parents). The first two companies to provide CATV were Multicanal in Bucharest and Timiş Cablu in Timişoara, both out of business today. Many small, startup firms gradually grew, and coverage increased (coverage wars were frequent in the early period, with many cable boxes smashed, and new cable networks offering "half off for twice the channels" and immediately wiring the building for any willing persons). However, this period soon ended, with consolidation around 1995-1996. Some large companies emerged: Kappa and RCS in Bucharest, Astral in Cluj, UPC in Timişoara, TourImex in Râmnicu Vâlcea. This consolidation came with gentlemen agreements 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. Internet over coaxial cable has been available since around 2000, and IP telephony (over the CATV infrastructure) since the deregulation of the market in 2003. Currently, cable TV is available in most of the country, including most rural areas (where roughly 50% of the population live). Satellite digital TV appeared in 2004, providing coverage for the rest of the country, with both RCS&RDS and UPC-Astral having a stake in these companies. IPTV (over DSL) is also planned by Romtelecom through its TV service (Dolce), after offering Satellite digital DTH TV. However, IPTV will not be much of a competition, since the other two big ISPs are also the two biggest CATV providers.

Cable TV is very cheap for all standards, the standard/basic service, offering about 50 channels, is around 20-30 RON/month including VAT (about 7-10 €), with the most expensive service, offering 10-15 channels more, including some pay-per-view such as HBO or Cinemax, costing no more than 60-70 RON/month (around 20-23 €).

List of channels

The following is a list of television channels broadcasted in Romania.

National

State-owned

TVR - Televiziunea Română

Private

CME

Intact

ProSiebenSat.1

Realitatea-Caţavencu

Boom

  • Boom Action - action movies
  • Boom Comedy - comedy movies and series
  • Boom Drama - romantic/drama movies and series (old Boom Romance)
  • Boom Indian - Indian movies
  • Boom Hop! - children
  • Boom Music - music
  • Boom Smarty - children
  • Boom Sport One - sports
  • Boom Sport Two - live football

Digi

  • Digifilm 1 - Pay per view Movies digifilm.ro
  • Digifilm 2 - Pay per view Movies
  • TVS Oradea - regional tvs.ro
  • TVS Craiova - regional     

CNM

Satellite

Discovery Romania

HBO Romania

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Viacom/MTV Networks

NBC Universal

Chellomedia

Fox International Channels

Eurosport Romania

Time Warner - Turner Broadcasting

The Walt Disney

Viasat Romania

BBC Global Channels

IKO Romania

Others

Local

Legend

     Channels also available in Moldova with Romanian soundtrack or subtitles ([1])
     Channels also available in Serbia with Romanian soundtrack or subtitles through the DTH platform "Digi TV" ([2])

See also

References

  1. ^ RomanianLarge TV broadcasters have started to 'suffer' during prime-time
  2. ^ http://www.http://www.zf.ro/articol_123324/romania_are_cea_mai_mare_rata_de_penetrare_a_televiziunii_prin_cablu_din_balcani_.html Romania has the highest penetration rates for cable in the Balkans - Ziarul Financiar
  3. ^ RomanianTVR Târgu-Mureş
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Television in Romania.
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