Romanian TV station ProTV, owned by American group CME, lost another high level manager in the beginning of 2014, when executive director Elena Petre decided to leave the company. Her leave came a month after CME appointed a new general manager, Aleksander Cesnavicius, who replaced Romanian Adrian Sarbu, the founder of ProTV.

Elena Petre has been working with ProTV since its early years, in 1995. The TV station was founded by Romanian entrepreneur Adrian Sarbu, who later on sold it to CME, only to become CME's GM. Last year, he resigned from the helm of the American media group. Soon after, the general manager of ProTV Anca Budinschi was replaced with Lithuanian Aleksander Cesnavicius, and Budinschi stayed as a deputy manager and program director. Later on, CME sales director Ciprian Stancu also left the company.

Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. - CME - managed to increase its net revenues in the country by USD 1 million in the first six months of 2013, to some USD 96 million. On the profit side however, CME recorded decreases across the board, but expects a return of profitability after the declining trend of TV advertising spending will reverse in the fall of 2013 building on its pricing initiatives.

The second quarter of the year mainly contributed to the growth in net revenues in Romania, with USD 2 million extra net revenues compared to the same period of 2012. CME reported USD 54 million in net revenues in Romania during the second quarter of the year, making it the first quarter of net revenue growth after plummeting sales throughout 2012.

At six months, Romania was the only country among CME's markets to post year-on-year growth, while the business in Croatia stayed flat, and net revenues dropped elsewhere in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, The Slovak republic and Slovenia. In the second quarter of the year, Croatia was the only other market where CME managed to up its revenues.

editor@romania-insider.com