American media group CME to move Romanian ProTV's headquarters from office tower owned by its former CEO

American media group CME, which owns several TV stations in Romania including ProTV, is expected to move out from its headquarters on Pache Protopopescu boulevard, a tower building owned by CME's former CEO Adrian Sarbu. Announced by PaginadeMedia.ro earlier in January, the move would entail Sarbu, founder of ProTV, has found new tenants for the building: the TV station Prima TV. According to local media, Sarbu, who had sold ProTV to CME, then became CME's CEO only to step down last year, already agreed on the terms of the lease with Prima TV owner Cristian Burci. The team at ProTV would thus move its studios and its staff to several buildings it has erected behind the tower they've been occupying since 1995. However, ProTV's staff moving out and the building welcoming a new tenant will most likely take months, according to Ziarul Ring. Local media has been hinting that CME has its Romanian activities up for sale, with discussions ongoing with Gazprom Media for a potential takeover. 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. 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