Balkan Insight: from Samir Mane to Kastrati, 'oligarchs' media entry

Gjergj Erebara *

The powerful businessman, politically connected, Shefqet Kastrati, has entered the oversaturated media market of Albania with the purchase of Euronews Albania on Monday, following in the footsteps of Samir Manes, who bought TV SCAN last month.

Balfin Group, 100 percent owned by Manes, bought TV SCAN in March for 700,000 euros. TV SCAN is a small operator, controlling only 2.9 percent of the TV advertising market in 2020, according to financial data analyzed by BIRN. At the end of that year, TV SCAN had amassed a loss of around 470,000 euros.

Mane has business interests in a wide range of sectors, from food and clothing to electricity, minerals, construction, and tourism.

On Monday, the Kastrati Group said it had bought a 60 percent stake in Intermedia Group, owned by Euronews Albania, for an undisclosed amount. She announced plans to expand to Kosovo and northern Macedonia.

Euronews Albania was founded in 2019 under an exclusivity agreement with Euronews, the European news network owned by a Portuguese company affiliated with the family circle of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Kastrati has interests in fuel, construction, tourism, and insurance, in addition to owning concessionaire firms that operate the highway connecting Albania with Kosovo and Tirana International Airport.

Euronews entered Albania, reporting revenues of about ALL 214 million, approximately EUR 1.8 million, in 2020 or about 5.3 percent of the market. It accumulated about ALL 59 million in losses, however, during the first two years of operation, consuming about 60 percent of the subscribed capital.

The Albanian television market is dominated by Klan and Top Channel, the two main operators with combined revenues that occupy about 63 percent of the total market turnover.

The market, however, is far from transparent.

On Monday, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Ylli Ndroqi, a media owner in Albania, for using the media previously under his control to “extort and blackmail Albanian citizens through demands for money and advertising purchases in exchange for banning the publication of stories. negative in the media ”.

Earlier this month, an administrative dispute within Top Channel, the country's main operator, sparked a power struggle between the management and the recently fired director of a major show, with each accusing the other of blackmail and corruption.

* The title is of Politiko