RTV Pink

RTV Pink
Launched September 16, 1994
Owned by Pink International Company
Picture format 16:9
Audience share 15.8% (2015.)
(Audience share from 2003 to 2015)
Country Serbia
Headquarters Belgrade
Sister channel(s) Pink 2, Pink Soap
Website www.pink.rs

RTV Pink or Radio Television Pink (Serbian: Radio-televizija Pink / Радио-телевизија Пинк (РТВ Пинк), also known as TV Pink or just Pink) is a popular, privately owned, national TV network in Serbia. Pink is the leading commercial station in the Serbian television broadcast market. TV Pink has gained a strong reputation for its entertainment programming. The station offers a compilation of international/domestic movies (blockbuster, action, thrillers, drama, comedy), American sitcoms, dramas and Latin telenovelas, as well as locally produced talk/variety shows, and lately domestic sitcoms and reality shows.

TV Pink's parent company is the Belgrade based Pink International Company, a member of the Pink Media Group (PMG), which is owned by Željko Mitrović. PMG also owns leading terrestrial television stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TV Pink BH), Slovenia (TV Pink SI) and Montenegro (TV Pink M). Over the years, PMG and Pink International have provided programming from Pink TV, Pink BH and Pink M to Media Systems GmbH (Austria) for two global satellite channels (Pink Extra and Pink Plus). Additionally, Pink International has cooperated with Serbia's largest cable operator, Serbia Broadband (SBB), to create nine direct-to-home (DTH) satellite channels that include Pink, Pink Plus, Pink BH, Pink M, Pink 2, Pink 3 Info, Pink Extra, Pink Kids, Pink Film, Pink Action, Pink Movies, Pink Family, Pink Music, Pink Folk, Pink Reality, Pink Music 2, Pink Premium and Pink Soap.

Programming

The company started broadcasting a TV signal on September 16, 1994 at 20:00, originally on analog channel 57 in Belgrade.

Right from its inception in 1994 TV Pink has strongly been oriented towards entertainment programmes. Different talk/variety shows endure to this day. Variety programmes like City Club (following the general format of BBC's Top of the Pops) and much maligned Grand Show (mostly featuring turbofolk performers) were the most popular in the beginning with the latter still going strong almost 13 years later.

Following its success with variety format, Pink's management started adding more traditional talk shows with Jedan pa tri (hosted by Tanja Vojtehovski-Stefanov), Svet oko nas (Ivana Zarić), Do poslednjeg daha (Miodrag Popov), Maksovizija (Milovan Ilić), etc. leading the pack. Others similarly set programmes that appeared in this period and onwards included: Svet Plus (Jelena Bačić-Alimpić), Pet do dvanaest (Boško Jakovljević and Aleksadra Kajganić), Lepota, zdravlje i jos ponešto (Jelena Bačić-Alimpić), Sav taj pink (Boško Jakovljević and Aleksadra Kajganić), and alternately Ognjen Amidžić and Marija Jakšić, etc.

Special mention goes to the short-format programme City - sort of a shorter multiple daily version of entertainment news shows in the vein of Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood - which over the years became the network's signature show and launched the careers of many of its presenters who became minor celebrities in the process (Boško Jakovljević, Biljana Obradović, Radmila Radenović, Bojana Nikolić, Adrijana Čortan, Aleksandra Jeftanović, Ivana Baltić, Irena Karaklajić, Ana Pendić, Marija Maćić, Stanko Škugor, Snežana Đorđević etc.).

TV Pink has earned a solid reputation for showing the latest box office film hits from the United States. According to an industry survey of television viewers conducted in 2007, respondents ranked TV Pink far ahead of any of the other Serbian stations in terms of the quality of its movie line-up. Pink has an exclusive output deal with Sony for its films and TV series.

Over the last 5–6 years, following a similar global trend, Pink started putting on a slew of reality and quiz shows, many of which were produced in co-operation with Emotion production company, like Leteći start (Milan Kalinić and Ana Mihajlovski), Potera, Zvezde ulice (Miki Perić), Ruski rulet (Irfan Mensur), Pravo lice (Sanja Radan), (Ne)moguća misija (elaborate candid camera show in the vein of Punk'd), Sve za ljubav (Milan Kalinić and Sanja Marinković), Menjam ženu (local version of Wife Swap), etc. Also, more talk-shows were added like Magazin IN (Sanja Marinković), Bravo Show (Jelena Bačić-Alimpić), etc. In early 2009, Pink scored ratings successes with "Celebrity Big Brother" and "The Moment of Truth."

News

In October 2000, following political changes in Serbia, RTV Pink started assembling its news division headed by Tanja Jordović who is the current Editor-in-Chief. At first the entire production was limited to Infotop—short, multiple daily broadcasts in a bulletin-style format—along with a central 30-minute evening newscast. Infotop mostly consisted of news agency reports as Pink had not yet developed a traditional network of correspondents.

In October 2005, Pink created interest with regards to its news division. For months in advance, the network aggressively promoted the start of its central daily newscast Nacionalni dnevnik that replaced Infotop, placed in the 7:30 pm time slot up against RTS' longtime signature newscast Dnevnik 2. Following errors during the start-up period, the broadcast stabilised. Dnevnik 2 was never overtaken in the overall viewership by any TV network. Initially, Nacionalni dnevnik was hosted by five senior anchors (Aleksandar Crkvenjakov, Mihajlo Kovac, Tanja Jordović, Petar Lazović, and Nenad Ristić) who rotated daily. The anchor line-up has changed since then and Nacionalni dnevnik's evening broadcast is now anchored by experienced journalists Slavko Beleslin and Tanja Radjenovic Monday through Friday. Weekends are anchored by a different two-person team. In December 2008, Nacionalni dnevnik debuted a new on-air set, underscoring its new more serious approach to delivering the news.

Around the time of Infotop's launch, Pink started developing political news-oriented talk shows. The weekly political panel discussion talk show Klopka, hosted by Olivera Kovačević, appeared on the network drawing both high ratings and much criticism for seemingly copying its concept from Olja Bećković's Utisak nedelje that had aired on Studio B since 1991. Kovačević later took her show to BKTV in 2003, while Pink introduced launched a replacement, Zamka, hosted by Tanja Vidojević. Zamka similarly was a lively political talk show with discourse between various guests. The show was later cancelled following Vidojevic's departure from the station. Pink also started the weekly political talk show Piramida. Originally hosted by Branka Nevistić, Piramida, which aired on Sunday evenings, and was currently hosted by Slavko Beleslin. Piramida has built a sizable viewership base.

Ratings

Between 1999 and 2006, Pink dominated the Serbian television market and received the highest ratings annually. Since 2006, the public broadcaster RTS1 took over, leading the overall ratings in every season except for 2009-2010 when Pink won the overall viewership race.

Pink's programming line-up has scored major ratings successes in many program genres. Music variety programs such as Zvezde Granda consistently draws large viewing audiences. In 2008, Grand Parada, Grand production's copy of American Idol, achieved unprecedented high ratings (80 market share at one point) during the broadcast of its finale. More than 2 million text messages were sent during the show's broadcast. Pink has also been at the forefront of introducing the reality show format to Serbia with programs such as Sve za ljubav (All for Love), and Menjam ženu (Wife Swap). In early 2009, TV Pink started airing The Moment of Truth. This program dominates the ratings in its weekly time-slot and has proven to be very popular. In the 2009 autumn programming season, TV Pink launched "The Farm," the latest reality show that attracted a large viewer base. Pink has also established its reputation for some of its special programming events such as Miss World Serbian selection. Pink's weekly film line-up includes drama, action, comedy, international, and Yugoslav/Serbian movies. Pink has had major output deals for American blockbuster films with Sony, Warner, Paramount, etc. In recent seasons, Pink put less films in its daily programming scheme, airing movies mainly in the evening.

In the new 2009 season, Pink launched its most ambitious programming scheme ever with shows that are likely to capture new viewer interest (e.g., The Farm) and a continuation of previously successful programs to hold its audience (e.g., Moment of the Truth). Across the board, Pink is introducing new musical variety shows, talk/entertainment shows, domestically produced sitcoms, a domestically produced dramatic series, etc. Other stations have not followed suit in comprehensively launching new programming and responding to demands of the viewing audience.

Audience share % (4+)[1]
Channel 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
RTS1 19.5 20.1 22.4 27.4 26.5 26.2 26.0 25.1 23.6 23.6 19.9 21.7 18.5
RTS2 7.4 8.2 6.3 6.7 6.8 7.6 5.7 4.6 4.2 3.6 3.0 3.1 2.3
Pink 21.9 20.0 22.5 23.3 23.5 21.7 23.7 25.6 20.4 19.7 21.4 19.0 15.8
Fox / Prva N/A N/A N/A N/A 4.7 6.4 7.8 10.6 15.1 16.1 16.0 13.2 10.7
B92 3.4 5.3 6.8 9.1 9.3 8.7 8.0 6.3 7.6 8.2 7.7 7.3 6.8
Happy N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 2.8 4.1 4.7 9.8

Criticism

RTV Pink has gained a large following of both admirers and critics. Some have criticized Pink over its programming content which is considered light and even kitschy. Pink's programming is similar to commercial stations in other European countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain, and even the United States. As a commercial station, Pink airs many different types of programming to attract viewers, whereas the public stations broadcast more educational, historical and science-related programming. Some of Pink's programming is titillating (music variety shows) that generates considerable criticism from more intellectual and conservative circles.

RTV Pink has been criticized as sensationalist and vapid. According to the Open Society Institute, which monitors telecommunications independence within the European Union, as a result of private encroachment in the television industry, stations like Pink have "resorted increasingly to low-quality entertainment and sensationalist newscasts." [2]

Pink has further critics. The Grand music shows have been characterized as "dumbing down" to the population, showing a primitive side of Serbia that glamorizes the troubled lives of performers and shows skimpily clothed singers/dancers that are watched by thousands of young children.

The latest criticisms came when Pink launched their reality program The Farm, which sometimes occupied up to ten hours of their schedule, thus resulting in the absence of previous successful shows, films and imported non-soap TV series (which were removed from unpopular late night airtime and transferred to cable only channel Pink Family). Pink still occasionally airs imported TV series, the latest one being Damages (TV-MA rated in the USA), at 8 am, before telenovela repeats.

Pink has often been criticised for unstable programming schedule. The airtimes are not standard, airing the same show at different times. Also, Pink is known for schedule changes which happen several times during the day, and the final decision brought at the last minute. The channel is also known for delaying its primetime schedule to past midnight for various reasons. Some of its shows air regularly after midnight.

A new term has been derived from all of this criticism - "Pink effect". The term is used when other TV networks in Serbia start sensationalizing and dumbing down their programmes. B92, although still of high opinion among the cultural population is said to be dumbing down with programmes such as Big Brother (a show that is also broadcast on Pink's sister network Pink BH).

Telenovelas, drama series and soap operas

RTV Pink has broadcast many foreign telenovelas, drama series and soap operas, mainly from Latin America, Turkey and India.

Latin American telenovelas

Turkish drama series

Indian soap operas

Croatian telenovelas

Serbian telenovelas

Logos

From 1994, for this television network, there are four different logos. The first trial logo was used in 1994, second logo of television network is used from 1995 to 2002 with black letters (in 2003 were included white letters), the third logo is used from 2004 to 2012, and the fourth and current logo is in use from 2012.

References

  1. ↑ Godišnji udeli u gledanosti najznačajnijih kanala u poslednjih 10 godina
  2. ↑ Television across Europe: regulation, policy and independence; Volume 1
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