Central European Media Enterprises (CME), which controls PRO TV, Acasa and Pro Cinema TV stations in Romania, posted an increase in the revenues derived on the Romanian market by 35.1% to 103.3 million dollars last year.
According to the data sent to the NASDAQ, the revenue in Romania is twice higher than in 2003, when it stood at 51 million dollars.
At the same time, CME derived earnings before to interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) worth 43.8 million dollars from its Romanian operations in 2005, an increase of nearly 74% from 2004 and 3.6 times greater than in 2003. CME is a majority shareholder of PRO TV, PRO Cinema, Acasa, PRO TV International TV stations and holds a minority stake in Compania de radio PRO (PRO Radio Company), which comprises PRO FM and Info PRO. It controls TV stations in a number of Central and Eastern European countries, such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Croatia.
CME''s total revenues in these countries grew to 465.2 million dollars last year compared with 246.5 million dollars in 2004, while EBITDA achieved more than double the growth to 157.8 million dollars.
Once the results were announced, CME''s stock quote on the NASDAQ market went up by over 7% to 63.7 dollars.
CME''s chief executive officer, Michael Garin, stated that a sophisticated sales strategy that will include price increases and a restructuring process to lead to a significant cost-cutting, was being implemented at Czech Republic-based TV Nova station, under the supervision of Adrian Sarbu, recently appointed as head of the business unit that covers the operations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.
CME''s chief operating officer, Robert Burke in turn said the successful model of Romania where the company operates a number of TV stations and has achieved a significant profitability increase, would be applied to other markets where CME is present.
According to Burke, the evolution of Slovakia''s TV Markiza, which accounted for a relatively small portion of the revenue in 2005, will improve this year, now that CME has acquired the controlling interests of the station and appointed a new management team headed by Adrian Sarbu.
Robert Burke added that CME was planning to boost its stake in the Ukrainian company that holds the licence for the Studio 1+1 television station.
The company wants to own the controlling interests in this station, whose revenues went up by 35% last year.
Furthermore, Michael Garin added that CME continued to look at new markets for the acquisition of television stations in Central and Eastern Europe.
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