Several major Bulgarian newspaper and magazine publishers have founded a new media association in Sofia, after the Union of Publishers in Bulgaria has been ripped apart by conflicts.

The new organization is called Bulgarian Media Union. Its most notable founders include Tosho Toshev, publisher of the Presa daily; Valeri Zapryanov, publisher of the Tema weekly magazine; Delyan Peevski, publisher of the New Bulgarian Media Group, which is notorious for its ties with the ethnic Turkish party DPS; advertising boss Krassimir Guergov who is connected with the Klasa daily; Petyo Blaskov, publisher of the Republika daily; Todor Batkov, publisher of the Standart daily; Svetlana Sharenkova, publisher of the Zemya daily; Dimitar Drumev, head of the Sonoma Blyasak publishing company.

Thus, the membership of the original Union of Publishers in Bulgaria is now reduced to the publishers of the two mainstream dailies Trud and 24 Chasa, the publishers of the Sega daily, and Economedia, the publisher of the Capital Daily and Capital weekly.

The new Bulgarian Media Union has been formed over discontent with the role of the publishers of the Trud daily and 24 Chasa daily Ognyan Donev and Lyubomir Pavlov, who, according to the discontents, have usurped the leadership of the Union of Publishers in Bulgaria.

The animosity between Donev and Pavlov on the one hand, and Tosho Toshev and Delyan Peevski on the other has resulted in frontpage mudslinging publications of the highest circulation Bulgarian dailies in the recent months.

The new Bulgarian Media Union has a total of 35 members, including distributors and advertising agencies.

It will be chaired by Tema magazine publisher Valeri Zapryanov. Advertising boss Krassimir Guergov has been elected to chair its supervisory council.