RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2012

Related Party Transactions [Abstract]

RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

Overview

There is a limited local market for many specialty broadcasting and production services in the countries in which we operate; many of these services are provided by parties known to be connected to our local shareholders, members of our management and board of directors or our equity investees.  Transactions involving related parties cannot be presumed to be carried out on an arm’s-length basis, as the requisite conditions of competitive, free-market dealings may not exist.  We continue to review all of these arrangements.

Related Party Groups

We consider our related parties to be those shareholders who have direct control and/or influence and other parties that can significantly influence management as well as our officers and directors; a “connected” party is one in relation to whom we are aware of the existence of a family or business connection to a shareholder, director or officer. We have identified transactions with individuals or entities associated with the following individuals or entities as material related party transactions: Adrian Sarbu, our President and Chief Executive Officer, a member of our Board of Directors and beneficial owner of approximately 3.2% of our outstanding shares of Class A common stock as at December 31, 2012; and Time Warner, who is represented on our Board of Directors and holds a 49.9% economic interest in CME Ltd. as at December 31, 2012.

Related Party Transactions

Adrian Sarbu

	For The Years Ending December 31,
	2012		2011		2010
Purchases of services	$	3,712	$	4,812	$	5,174
Sales	1,254		1,197		852

	As at December 31,
	2012		2011
Accounts payable	$	809	$	512
Accounts receivable	1,770		765

In addition, on January 31, 2011, we completed the acquisition of 100.0% of Pro Digital, a company controlled by Adrian Sarbu, on a debt-free basis for cash consideration of EUR 0.7 million (approximately US$ 0.9 million at the date of acquisition). Also, on May 24, 2010, we acquired the remaining approximately 5.0% ownership interest in each of Pro TV, MPI and MVI from Adrian Sarbu, thereby increasing our ownership interests in each company to 100.0%. Consideration for the noncontrolling interest acquired was US$ 24.7 million, consisting of a cash payment of approximately US$ 6.2 million and the issuance of 800,000 shares of our Class A common stock (with a fair value of US$ 18.5 million at the date of acquisition) (see Note 3, “Acquisitions and Dispositions”).

Time Warner

	For The Years Ending December 31,
	2012		2011		2010
Purchases of programming	$	42,230	$	57,196	$	33,566
Sales	224		198		40

	As at December 31,
	2012		2011
Programming liabilities	$	52,863	$	78,016
Accounts receivable	119		159

See Note 5, "Long-Term Debt and Other Financing Arrangements" and Note 12, "Financial Instruments and Fair Value Measurements" for discussion of transactions with Time Warner to reduce our indebtedness. The TW Loans were repaid on July 3, 2012.