Cruel media market reality: retailer leaflet, most distributed Romanian newspaper

The weekly promotional brochure edited by Kaufland, Romania’s largest retailer, is by far the most distributed Romanian newspaper, according to official statistics from the Romanian Audit Bureau of Circulation BRAT. Kaufland prints over 4.3 million copies of its weekly promotional catalogue, which it then distributed to more than half of Romania’s 7 million households. The second publication in Romania in terms of circulation is the weekly free TV guide Click! Ghid TV, published by Adevarul Holding, which distributes almost 200,000 copies, according to BRAT data for the period October-December 2014. The highest selling paid newspaper in Romania is the daily tabloid Click, also published by Adevarul Holding, which sells an average of 111,000 copies a day. The second daily in terms of circulation is Libertatea, edited by Ringier Romania, which distributes a little over 65,000 copies per day. Third comes sports newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor, with some 27,700 daily copies bought to clients. The fourth best-selling daily newspaper in Romania is Lumina (translated as The Light), which is a religious-themed newspaper published by the Romanian Patriarchy. It sells, on average, 22,000 copies a day. Fifth is a local newspaper called Unirea (The Union), which only sells in Alba county. This paper prints some 20,000 copies a day. Romania’s highest-selling quality daily newspaper is Evenimentul Zilei, which sells on average 13,000 copies per day. Next come Romania Libera, with 11,000 copies per day and Adevarul, with some 10,300 copies. The circulation numbers of all dailies in Romania amount to less than 500,000 copies, according to BRAT data. This means that less than 7% of Romania’s 7 million households receive daily newspapers. Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com