Romania's media market to rise by 7% above pre-crisis 2019 level

Romania's media market suffered a 3.8% contraction last year due to the pandemic, edging down to EUR 462 mln.

Still, the second half of the year and the beginning of 2021 show a strong recovery that will result in full recovery this year.

The market's value will exceed half a billion euros, more precisely EUR 514 mln 11 more than in 2020 and 7% more than in 2019, according to the annual Media Fact Book report prepared by the Initiative Romania agency, quoted by Ziarul Financiar.

Of the total advertising volume forecast for 2021, for the most part, EUR 329 mln (+ 9%) will go to TV, followed by Digital, with EUR 125 mln (+ 19%), Radio and OOH, with EUR 26-27 mln each (+8% and +12% respectively), and Print, with EUR 6 mln (steady from in 2020, when it was reduced by half compared to 2019).

"Our industry is recovering quickly after a year of suffering, and the recovery is so spectacular that it makes us forget how hard it was for us in 2020. It is 13 years since the crisis of 2008-2009, and only now can we say that we are overcoming as media volumes the historical maximum of the market in 2008. We see that the media ecosystem in Romania has adapted very quickly to the challenges that quarantine and restrictions have brought and made the most of the opportunities that this crisis has opened - we see an outstanding increase in digital channels, an explosion of new advertisers in the market, by categories that are related to digital services - which creates new territories for the communication industry in Romania. I would say that after 2020 that brought a moderate decline in the media industry, it has resumed its normal, upward course," said Alexandra Olteanu, managing director of Initiative Romania.

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