Media and Advertising Market Trends of Romania in 2021

The economic environment 

According to the National Statistics Institute, the Romanian economy has increased by 5.9% (vs. 2020). In the meantime, the annual inflation reached the highest level in the last decade: it was around 8%.

The ratio of employed people increased because of a mix of factors such as the development of certain industries like health, as well as the continued development of some sectors that had already been growing before. To the latter category belongs the field of technology and telecommunications that found extraordinary opportunities for growth and development during this period. There was also some reduction in the number of Romanians travelling abroad, influenced both by insecurity and travel restrictions.

In addition, an EY study revealed that employees are gaining significant influence over employers and that the top of their “wish list” to potential employers is changing to flexibility, higher wages, and better working conditions.

There is a trend that continued in 2021: the urban population with big purchasing power is keeping on moving to metropolitan areas. Practically, they live in rural areas, but they maintain the behavior and needs of the people from big cities. Therefore, some important TV stations extended their commercial targets to include the areas considered “rural” in the audience study run by Kantar Media.

The political environment 

2021 was relatively quiet, without elections, so news TV-stations did not have any new audience peaks. The most important topics were the pandemic and the unsuccessful vaccination process. After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the demand for news increased both on generalist and specialized news stations, but only for a limited time. The next subject of the news is obviously the new world economic crisis. All the above did not have a major influence on the budget split among the main media outlets in Romania.

State-owned TV stations (controlled by the Government) benefit from a legislative change in effect since July 2022: the advertising time can be increased from eight to ten minutes per hour. In addition, these stations can now break the programs for advertising. This fact can influence Romanian public television channel’s (TVR) advertising revenues, even if the ratings are low.

The local media market 

The overall media spending was 600 million Euros, so it took 13 years to reach the level of 2008, before the economic crisis. The mix is still dominated by TV with a 60% share and digital with 28%. The rest 12% is split among other media types. Radio and OOH managed to recover and reach the levels before the pandemic.

TV remains the largest content provider to any screen. Main generalist channels continued to invest into self-productions in their struggle to have flagship programs with high audiences and recognition to be disseminated in various mediums, creating flexible ways to advertise.

Digital investments are continuously growing. International platforms are dominating the market, while mobile represents more than 80% of all internet access. TikTok continues its high-speed growth, overpassing the growth rate of Instagram and (recently) Google and Facebook. Video on demand platforms are more and more attractive; they are advertising-free at this moment, but changes are expected soon.

Beside some minor changes like the rebranding of Look Sport to Prima Sport, TNT to Warner, and the acquisition of Telekom Sport by Orange, the big picture on the media market has not significantly altered. The most advertised categories are pharma, retail, sweets and telecommunications. Gambling (restricted on TV until 11:00 PM) recorded the greatest increase: 73% (vs. 2020).

Trends of media consumption 

Consumers adapted to the changes that COVID-19 had brought to them, and integrated the media consumption better than in the first pandemic year. Due to a new hybrid way of living, consumers are showing a mixed usage of media.

COVID-19 represented one of the most dynamically changing situations that the consumers met, so they stayed connected to news as constantly as possible. This pattern included younger generations as well, especially when it came to turning on the TV-set. In 2021, TV recovered from the first pandemic year, and registered an advance of 15% compared to 2020, and a 13% advance compared to 2019. 

Digital usage continued to grow in 2021, and revealed it is no longer just an accessory or a nice-to-have in campaigns, but the engine of them. Podcasts remain relevant to consumers, having 3.2 million listeners (from total Romanian internet users), aged 16-50. 58% of them discovered podcasts within the last year, and 70% listens to them at least once a week.

On the rise of online usage, even more than in the pre-pandemic times, consumers needed to compensate the social distance restrictions on social media, especially by video. The video boom happened in the work context as well and people could be found on Skype, Zoom and other similar apps. In 2021, they continued to rely on video since they were working from home in massive numbers.

Radio stations have quickly adapted to the new digital context and have integrated their programs into social platforms, extending towards digital radio formats. For OOH, the deep crisis induced by the first pandemic year slowly overpassed, and advertisers reconsidered OOH as a useful communication channel. There is also a mix of OOH and digital (the usage QR codes) that draws consumers’ attention.