As a former adviser to Jack Welch and co-founder of Lorimar Telepictures, the company that brought Dallas to the world’s television screens, Michael Garin has impeccable capitalist credentials.

Since becoming chief executive of Central European Media Enterprises four years ago, however, he has faced the biggest challenge of his 41-year career: to turn a company whose staff had grown up under communism into one of the fastest-growing profit makers in an increasingly tough broadcast sector.