Euforia Lifestyle TV

World Screen Weekly, September 20, 2007

COUNTRY: Romania

LAUNCH DATE: January 15, 2006

OWNERSHIP: Intact Holding

DISTRIBUTION: The channel reaches 64 percent of Romanian households.

DESCRIPTION: Launched at the beginning of 2006, Euforia Lifestyle TV is a Romanian channel aimed at women aged 15 to 54. It is part of a bouquet of networks operated by Intact, including the general entertainment channel Antena 1 and the news and current-affairs offering Antena 3.

CEO: Florin Nicoara

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Lucian Marinescu

MARKETING MANAGER: Daniela Balaei

PR COORDINATOR: Alexandru Baltat

PROGRAMMING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Elisabeta Sofron

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: According to Florin Nicoara, the CEO of the channel, Euforia’s content is designed to speak to educated, upwardly mobile women, “who aspire to a beautiful life,” he says.

About 40 percent of Euforia’s programming is produced in house, covering talk shows and lifestyle series. Top performing local productions have included the prime-time talk show She Leads the Way; a local version of the international format Shopaholics; Private Diary, a late-night talk show about sex; the reality series Geta Voinea Hair & Style; and the access talk show The Butterfly Sign. Other key original productions, Nicoara says, have been Euforia Midnight Sun Tour, Weddings with Style and La Vita e Bella.

The remaining 60 percent of the schedule is made up of international acquisitions. The Oprah Winfrey Show is a top-performer on Euforia, as is the design series Merge and the reality series Single in Vegas. According to Nicoara, Euforia is acquiring programming on fashion, beauty, cooking, travel, design, love and relationships, marriage, raising families, celebrities and health. It is also interested in “reality-lifestyle series and talk shows.”

Most of Euforia’s acquisitions come from the U.S. and the U.K., Nicoara says, citing From Martha Stewart’s Kitchen, Fashion Police, Dr. 90210, The Real Sex in the City, Bridezillas and eLove as some of its most successful purchases.

Euforia’s daily schedule kicks off with a fitness series in the morning, leading into shows about health, beauty and fashion. In the afternoon, the channel offers up the interactive astrology series It’s Written in the Stars, followed by the talk show The Butterfly Sign.

Prime time on weekdays, Nicoara says, “opens with Euforia Cuisine and its tasty cooking shows. The main prime-time program is the locally produced talk show She Leads the Way, which was replaced in the summer grid by feature films and the colorful entertainment series Chic & Shake with DJ Wanda on Thursday evening. Oprah usually closes the prime-time [schedule] Monday to Thursday.” Nicoara says that the recent acquisition Rachael Ray took Oprah’s slot during July and August.

Over the summer, Euforia used Saturday evenings to feature its own version of the international format Shopping for Love and the American reality show Single in On Sundays, Just Dating, an original production, aired in prime time along with new seasons of Look for Less and Fashion Police.

WHAT’S NEW: Nicoara says that the channel is seeking “sex and lifestyle programs to fill our late-night schedule on weekends. These [educational] yet entertaining programs are highly appreciated by Euforia’s viewers. We could also use new fitness programs and design programs.”

In its efforts to “express the wonderful universe of female identity,” Euforia’s fall schedule includes the fourth season of the reality lifestyle program based on the international format Shopaholics, a brand new in-house production called The Mother and the Baby, new episodes of Weddings with Style, new seasons of the original shows Geta Voinea Hair & Style, Private Diary, She Leads the Way and The Butterfly Sign, and a new weekly prime-time production based on the international format Tease.

WEBSITE: www.euforia.tv

—By Mansha Daswani