Pro TV founder gets license for new TV channel in Romania

Romania’s National Audiovisual Council extended a cable and satellite license for a new TV channel - Smart TV (plus the Smart TV HD version), run by Adrian Sarbu, the founder of Romania’s biggest TV station (Pro TV), and journalist Marius Tuca, Mediafax reported.

Smart TV will be a generalist television channel, targeting urban viewers with higher education and higher revenues, which is spending less time watching TV and more time using smart devices, according to Adrian Sarbu.

“Smart TV will be a journalism and urban culture channel,” Sarbu said. “Our product is social-television, TV channel and social community, consumed on all devices, but firstly a classic TV channel distributed through cable,” he explained.

The project will include talk shows hosted Marius Tuca himself and by one of the most popular journalists covering from tabloid to politic topics - Ion Cristoiu. The founders of Smart TV also promise an atypical news bulletin and episodes of the Comedy Mall - a series of pamphlets that have already been running online. The television will invest some EUR 2 million in creating new programs, and 56% of its content will be original.

Separately, Sarbu said that Smart FM radio station, which has been broadcasting for several years, will be re-positioned in line with the strategy of Smart TV.

Adrian Sarbu, who sold Pro TV to Central European Media Enterprises (CME) years ago, still owns a media group including the Mediafax news agency and Ziarul Financiar financial daily.

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