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ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS
6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2012
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]  
ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS
ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS

Central European Media Enterprises Ltd., a Bermuda company limited by shares, is a media and entertainment company operating leading broadcast, production and distribution, and new media businesses in Central and Eastern Europe. Our assets are held through a series of Dutch and Curaçao holding companies. At June 30, 2012, we operated mainly in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.

We manage our business on a divisional basis, with three operating segments, Broadcast, Media Pro Entertainment, our production and distribution business, and New Media, which are also our reportable segments.

Broadcast

Our Broadcast segment consists of 32 television channels primarily in six countries.  We generate advertising revenues in our Broadcast segment primarily through entering into agreements with advertisers, advertising agencies and sponsors to place advertising on the television channels that we operate. Our main general entertainment television channels in each country are distributed on a free-to-air basis terrestrially in analog, digital or both, depending on the digitalization status in each country, and are also distributed via cable and satellite. Our other channels are generally distributed via cable and satellite.  Unless otherwise indicated, we own 100% of our broadcast operating and license companies in each country.

Bulgaria

We operate one general entertainment channel, BTV, and five other channels, BTV CINEMA, BTV COMEDY, RING.BG, BTV ACTION and BTV LADY, a female-oriented cable channel that was launched on January 28, 2012. We also own several radio channels. We currently own 94.0% of CME Bulgaria B.V. ("CME Bulgaria"), the subsidiary that owns our Bulgaria Broadcast operations. Top Tone Media Holdings Limited ("Top Tone Holdings"), the third party that owns the remaining interest in CME Bulgaria, has exercised its right to acquire additional equity in CME Bulgaria, however the closing of this transaction has not yet occurred. Upon consummation of the equity transfer, we will own 90.0% of our Bulgaria Broadcast operations.

Croatia

We operate one general entertainment channel, NOVA TV (Croatia), one female-oriented channel, DOMA (Croatia), and an international channel, NOVA WORLD.

Czech Republic

We operate one general entertainment channel, TV NOVA (Czech Republic), and three other channels, NOVA CINEMA, NOVA SPORT and MTV CZECH. On July 14, 2012, we launched a male-oriented channel, FANDA.

Romania

We operate two general entertainment channels, PRO TV and ACASA, three other channels, PRO CINEMA, SPORT.RO, MTV ROMANIA, and an international channel, PRO TV INTERNATIONAL, as well as a general entertainment channel broadcasting in Moldova, PRO TV CHISINAU. On April 15, 2012, we launched an additional channel in Romania, ACASA GOLD, which is a female-oriented cable channel.

Slovak Republic

We operate one general entertainment channel, TV MARKIZA, and one female-orientated channel, DOMA (Slovak Republic).

Slovenia

We operate two general entertainment channels, POP TV and KANAL A, and POP NON STOP, a subscription package of six channels which includes POP KINO, POP KINO2, POP BRIO, POP FANI, POP OTO and POP SPOT.

Media Pro Entertainment

Media Pro Entertainment (“MPE”), our production and distribution business, leverages creative talent across all our countries and focuses on the development, production and distribution of content for our television channels and to third parties, both within our region and globally.

MPE is organized into two businesses:

Production: This business provides assets and expertise to produce a range of fiction, reality and entertainment programming, and films, using both licensed formats as well as original formats and content developed by the business. The content produced can be easily adapted for use across several markets and in many revenue-generating windows.

Distribution: In addition to having responsibility for selling finished content and formats developed by our production operations to third parties, this business acquires rights to international film and television content across our region and distributes them both to third party clients and to our Broadcast operations. Our distribution operations are also able to generate third-party revenue by distributing content through the theatrical and home video operations. MPE owns and operates sixteen cinema screens in Romania. In addition, a home video distribution business sells DVD and Blu Ray discs to wholesale and retail clients in the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Romania and Hungary. A significant portion of our distribution revenues are to third parties, which are expected to generate a significant portion of MPE’s consolidated profits in the short-term.

The MPE segment currently generates the majority of its revenues from sales to our Broadcast segment. For that reason, the financial results of the segment are dependent to an extent on the performance of the television advertising market, although the long-term nature of the production process is such that it takes time for significant market changes to be reflected in this segment's results.

New Media

We own and operate more than 75 websites across our markets as well as our video-on-demand service, Voyo, in order to build strong online channels to distribute popular content and to operate an efficient marketing tool for our Broadcast operations.  The New Media segment focuses on offering viewers the choice of watching our premium television content anytime, anywhere, and operates a series of news portals, ranging from general information to sports or niche sites. Voyo is an internet-based content aggregation and distribution platform that offers consumers both free and paid content in multiple distribution windows. During the first six months of 2012, Voyo completed the introduction of a subscription based video-on-demand service in all of its regions, offering premium locally produced productions as well as hundreds of local and foreign feature films. It also offers an embedded transactional video-on-demand element devoted to movie content from major Hollywood and independent studios. Revenues generated by the New Media segment are primarily derived from the sale of advertising.