SNAPSHOT

The manager: Jacob Andersson
The job: Executive Director
The company: Diema Vision
In brief: Diema Vision was founded in 1999. Its portfolio features four TV channels: Diema, Diema 2, Diema Family and MM TV, all distributed via cable in Bulgaria with 70 per cent coverage throughout the country.
As of March 2007, Diema Vision is a part of BMGL (Balkan Media Group Limited), a joint venture between Apace Media Group UK and the international entertainment-broadcasting group Modern Times Group MTG.

“It’s a great success for our company,” says Jacob Andersson, the new executive director of Diema Vision. Recently promoted, Andersson is very familiar with the company’s business as he spent the last half year as Diema Vision’s operational manager. “Euro 2008 affords us the opportunity to show that we are the best sports channel in Bulgaria and that this kind of event is not necessarily the preserve of state-owned stations.”

For him this is a trend throughout Europe. “In the Czech Republic, for example, the state-owned channel used to screen all major sports events. When people realised they were not going to show them, they were amazed. The same happened here in Bulgaria with BNT in 2006 when we won the rights for Euro 2008. They simply have the concept ‘we are the public broadcaster, hence we should have the rights’. BNT was completely taken by surprise and overslept the tender.”

UEFA’s commercial approach also helped Diema Vision win the broadcast rights. Until very recently UEFA’s TV rights were handled by the European Broadcasting Union, meaning that there was no tender process involving commercial channels. This has changed and UEFA is using an agent for distributing TV rights “Now two thirds – or 70 per cent of all broadcasting in the different countries – is screened by public broadcasters. The rest is done through commercial channels.”

So this summer you’ll need cable TV to watch the games on one of Diema Vision’s four channels. Fans can watch it if they have cable TV or they can watch the 31 games live online on the specially launched website, euro2008.ontheweb.bg.

A year ago, speculation was rife that Diema Vision might be unable to fulfil one of UEFA’s requirements for awarding broadcasting rights. The company’s competitors claimed that Diema Vision lacked the required TV coverage throughout Bulgaria. “Currently, we cover more than 75 per cent of the country. UEFA has confirmed that we will be the exclusive broadcaster of the tournament, so all this is indeed speculation,” Andersson says.

Furthermore, he’s keen to make this event highly lucrative for Diema Vision. “We’re not interested in sharing broadcasting rights with other Bulgarian TV channels. It’s an exclusive event that we’d like to keep only on Diema Vision channels.” Anderson says that the fact that Diema Vision has four channels will benefit fans because it enables the company to show overlapping games. All 31 matches will be shown live on both the company’s free-to-air channels Diema and Diema 2. This will be complemented by additional programmes on all three channels, including match repeats and daily highlights.

“Advertisers have been showing a lot of interest in the run-up to Euro 2008, so I’m confident we’ll reach our sales targets,” Andersson says. He refuses to name the advertisers. “Let me put it this way; there are 10 official sponsors to the Euro and we have signed quite a few of them in addition to others.”

Besides Euro 2008, Diema Vision has proved very popular with Bulgarian sport fans mainly because it shows matches from the English FA Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, the French Ligue 1, the FA Cup, the Carling Cup, tennis matches and boxing.

“British football is one of the most valuable feathers in Diema Vision’s cap. It’s a cornerstone for sure but we don’t live and die with only this property because we want to offer different people different products,” Andersson says.

Diema Vision’s successful sport coverage has not gone unnoticed. Sport seems to have become the latest fashion among Bulgarian broadcasters. Some months ago, commercial Ring TV announced that it had started showing football games from France, Scotland, the Netherlands and Russia. TV7 is already showing games from the Italian championship and Cablesport7 will show games from Spanish Primera division. The leading sports betting company in Bulgaria, Evrofutbol, also announced plans to launch a sports channel.

“It’s quite natural. There are many sport fans in Bulgaria but I doubt that many proposed sport projects will make a return on investments. Sport is an investment like everything else. You buy a property and you want a return on it. In this sense getting the rights is insufficient because behind a successful sports product lies a big production as well.”

All these plans lead to a more competitive market but Andersson admits that Bulgaria is still a market with one or two overriding players. “BTV is such a player. It has a very big share of the market in terms of viewers and money. In terms of sports coverage the channel owned by Rupert Murdoch holds the rights for two of the most lucrative European sporting events: UEFA’s Champions League and Formula One.

“This has been the reality so far but a new pattern is emerging and Sweden is such an example. The trend is to go into a more fragmented market where you don’t have one strong player. At the same time Bulgaria is a country with a flourishing economy. We expect it to continue growing, enabling us to expand the market. When you have a burgeoning economy you also have a growing advertising sector. We also expect to corner a greater market share from the players already here.” Euro 2008 will be one of Diema Vision’s efforts in that direction “I’m certain there is definitely room for further growth for Diema Vision in Bulgaria,” he says.

This “conviction” is reflected in Diema Vison’s portfolio and strategy. “We consider ourselves a group of channels: we have Diema, which is our general entertainment mainstream channel, targeting viewers aged between 18 and 49. It is slightly more urban than the other channels and historically, it has been the flagship channel. We also have Diema Family, a big success so far. It offers family entertainment and, specifically, targets women and children.” According to Andersson, Diema Family is no competition to BTV’s FOX Life channel “because they have a much younger audience profile and furthermore, during the last six months, Diema Family has doubled in growth so it is the fastest growing channel in Bulgaria.” Andersson’s portfolio also owns Diema 2 channel which tends to target the male audience and sporting events. “Last but not least, we have the MM music channel.” The latter has been the channel of choice for Bulgaria’s youth in the late 90s and the early years of the century. It was launched as a model of MTV and has enjoyed huge success in Bulgaria by showing contemporary Bulgarian music. It has managed to separate itself from the influence of the chalga phenomenon as some media call it. Chalga music in Bulgaria is based on traditional folklore music predominantly mixed with Eastern and Roma musical motifs. Its visible face is young female singers with blonde hair, heavy make-up and plastic surgery-enhanced features. The Planeta TV music channel, which shows chalga video clips, has become the most successful music channel in Bulgaria, spreading business to Macedonia and Greece. MM fans however should be pleased. “We’ll continue to keep chalga music off MM charts,” Andersson says, leaving no doubt about his knowledge of the chalga phenomenon. “We’re not interested in beating Planeta TV in its target group (some surveys describe Planeta TV as the favourite TV channel of those aged between 10 and 18). The music TV market has become quite crowded, like the sports one, but all channels have different profiles and we are committed to developing MM. We have some plans but it’s too early to reveal them and they won’t involve chalga.”

As for the other world-wide media phenomenon called internet Diema Vision certainly plans to take its share in it. “I’ve been personally involved in the launch of ontheweb.bg website from the day I arrived in the country on September 1 2007.” The website was launched last December “and we intend to go very strong, particularly on sports coverage”. A month ago, Antenna Group the Greek owner of commercial Nova Televisia, announced the purchase of a women’s magazine. Andersson’s reaction is straightforward. “We’re not interested in print media simply because it’s not our business.”

Jacob Andersson started working for Modern Times Group MTG three years ago when he was still at the Copenhagen business school. He was accepted to MTG’s management training programme and was offered a job. The company gave him two weeks to finish his thesis, which he had started only two weeks before. Before his appointment in Bulgaria, Andersson worked in MTG’s London central office and for Czech TV Prima.

He still travels every week between Bulgaria and his home in London, where he moved this February from Prague. “I like it because it affords me some space to work on the flight, untroubled by phone calls.” As a manager Andersson considers himself a hands-on person. “So I’m not a director in that sense. I’m not going to sit in my chair, lean back and wait for other people to do the job.” He likes to be involved in the work and gain knowledge of all the areas he works in. “I realise that I’m not an expert in everything, so I rely on my managers. I serve as a coach. I’m trying to see the big picture together with my managers and staff.”

When he arrived in Bulgaria it was just five months since the inclusion of Diema Vision in the MTG AB portfolio. Since then the entire old management team was replaced as well as some people underneath. Today, Diema Vision has a staff of about 140 people, a fall from the previous 200. “It was a two-way process. We’ve been very lucky with recruiting staff given the problems Bulgaria has with its qualified labour force.” Andersson describes his team as the best a TV company can have in Bulgaria.

“We used to have four foreigners in the company. Now it’s only me and I have no problem with that.” He was pleasantly surprised with Bulgarians’ knowledge of English compared to other countries he’s worked in. Nevertheless, he started taking Bulgarian lessons. “I know that I am the manager and people have to talk to me in English but, even so, people always make an effort to speak in English as a matter of courtesy. I appreciate this very much.” He also likes the Bulgarian business approach. “It’s easier than in the Czech Republic. Maybe it has to do with the southern European mentality.” As for some of the differences Andersson says that in Bulgaria certain individuals have a strong influence on state regulators. “I don’t feel the political influence on Diema Vision but we can obviously see it in some regulatory aspects. This is something that does not happen in Sweden, the Czech Republic and the UK to the same extent. It’s a major difference.”