Power struggle over Romanian TV station

The Romanian investor Elan Schwarztenberg sacked the management of his broadcaster Realitatea TV on Sunday, which allegedly had close ties to the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Viktor Ponta. The new management, by contrast, favours the broadcaster's former owner, the media mogul Sorin Vântu, a friend of Schwartzenberg's. Mircea Marian suspects a power struggle here and writes in the blog portal hydepark: "The Social Democratic leader Ponta needs the station to attain a certain measure of independence from [his conservative adversary] Dan Voicelescu and the latter's station Antena 3. Sorin Vântu, by contrast, needs the station because he believes it can help him with his court cases, as it has done in the past. ... Schwartzenberg himself says he's independent and has a large group of investors behind him. But Realitatea TV is important for the 2012 elections, and that's where the money's going to come from."

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