Making waves
The Agora media group, which owns the popular Gazeta Wyborcza daily, is drafting plans to keep its leading position in the print market and remains interested in buying into television and radio.
Set up to publish an underground newspaper for the Solidarity movement, Agora began expanding after the 1989 fall of communism to become Warsaw's 16th-largest listed company, with a market capitalization of zł.3.15 billion and interests in outdoor advertising, radio and magazines.
Commenting on Agora's radio plans, the company's president, Wanda Rapaczyńska, told Puls Biznesu: "The best formula would be to merge a national station with several local ones. This can be a joint venture, an alliance or an acquisition. Each of these forms is interesting."
Its current local radio network has been negatively influencing the group's financial results for some time and Agora is keen to take steps to attain long-term profitability in the segment. It's thought the key to success is to cooperate with leaders on the market to create a common advertising offer. At the moment Agora cooperates with Eurozet, owner of Radio Zet, and it will soon sign another cooperation agreement with RMF FM.
Despite these deals it stands little chance of taking over either RMF FM, which is not even considering such a move, or Eurozet, which is likely to be sold to its strategic investor, Lagardere Active Radio International.
Agora's ambitious plan to buy Poland's largest private television broadcaster Polsat two years ago ran into opposition from the government, which sought to introduce legislation to limit cross-media ownership.
The tussle turned into a major corruption scandal - the so-called Rywingate affair - when Agora revealed it had been offered favorable legislation if it paid a multi-million-dollar bribe.
"After the [media law] affair broke out we were ... banging our head against the wall. We were a bit stuck. For the first time in our history we hired strategic media consultants who helped us refresh ideas on alternative growth paths," Rapaczyńska said.
"We are open to acquisitions but we are also looking at green-field projects ... Taking into account the limited number of media assets, the path of projects that start from scratch, despite a temporary worsening of results, could be a very good idea for the longer term.
"Television is still within the sphere of our interests, because it accounts for half of the ad market and a transaction merging the print and TV businesses could be an equation where two plus two is more than four," she said.
Rapaczyńska said Agora, whose ad revenues rose 10 percent last year to zł.642 million, wanted to boost sales as the market grew due to economic recovery, but added that she expected tough competition to keep limiting margins.
She said the total advertising market, estimated at some zł.5 billion last year, was forecast to grow by some 10 percent this year, but the increase could be higher if a major company decided to launch an extensive campaign. (Reuters)
Set up to publish an underground newspaper for the Solidarity movement, Agora began expanding after the 1989 fall of communism to become Warsaw's 16th-largest listed company, with a market capitalization of zł.3.15 billion and interests in outdoor advertising, radio and magazines.
Commenting on Agora's radio plans, the company's president, Wanda Rapaczyńska, told Puls Biznesu: "The best formula would be to merge a national station with several local ones. This can be a joint venture, an alliance or an acquisition. Each of these forms is interesting."
Its current local radio network has been negatively influencing the group's financial results for some time and Agora is keen to take steps to attain long-term profitability in the segment. It's thought the key to success is to cooperate with leaders on the market to create a common advertising offer. At the moment Agora cooperates with Eurozet, owner of Radio Zet, and it will soon sign another cooperation agreement with RMF FM.
Despite these deals it stands little chance of taking over either RMF FM, which is not even considering such a move, or Eurozet, which is likely to be sold to its strategic investor, Lagardere Active Radio International.
Agora's ambitious plan to buy Poland's largest private television broadcaster Polsat two years ago ran into opposition from the government, which sought to introduce legislation to limit cross-media ownership.
The tussle turned into a major corruption scandal - the so-called Rywingate affair - when Agora revealed it had been offered favorable legislation if it paid a multi-million-dollar bribe.
"After the [media law] affair broke out we were ... banging our head against the wall. We were a bit stuck. For the first time in our history we hired strategic media consultants who helped us refresh ideas on alternative growth paths," Rapaczyńska said.
"We are open to acquisitions but we are also looking at green-field projects ... Taking into account the limited number of media assets, the path of projects that start from scratch, despite a temporary worsening of results, could be a very good idea for the longer term.
"Television is still within the sphere of our interests, because it accounts for half of the ad market and a transaction merging the print and TV businesses could be an equation where two plus two is more than four," she said.
Rapaczyńska said Agora, whose ad revenues rose 10 percent last year to zł.642 million, wanted to boost sales as the market grew due to economic recovery, but added that she expected tough competition to keep limiting margins.
She said the total advertising market, estimated at some zł.5 billion last year, was forecast to grow by some 10 percent this year, but the increase could be higher if a major company decided to launch an extensive campaign. (Reuters)
