Regulators should allow RTL and ProSieben to merge - Rabe

RTL SA

16/02/2020 13:36

By Douglas Busvine
    BERLIN, Feb 16 (Reuters) - The head of publisher Bertelsmann
 BTGGg.F  said its TV arm RTL  RRTL.DE  should be allowed to
merge with German rival ProSiebenSat.1  PSMGn.DE , to give them
a fighting chance against U.S. streaming giants.
    Thomas Rabe's comments - in an interview with Frankfurter
Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung published on Sunday - come as
European broadcasters explore ways to join forces against the
onslaught from established players Netflix and Amazon Prime that
are now being joined by Disney and Apple.
    "It is vital that sensible partnerships, and even large
mergers, are allowed in order to create national champions in
television - for example between RTL and ProSiebenSat.1," Rabe
said.
    "Otherwise, national companies will simply have no chance in
a few years against the giants from Silicon Valley," added the
Bertelsmann boss, who took personal charge over its largest unit
RTL last year.
    ProSieben has become the focus of takeover speculation after
Italy's Mediaset  MS.MI  amassed a 15.1% stake in the
Munich-based broadcaster towards the end of last year.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N27V2NW
    Mediaset, run by the son of former premier Silvio
Berlusconi, has described its ProSieben stake as defensive. At
the same time it is trying to persuade ProSieben CEO Max Conze
to join a pan-European broadcasting alliance it is setting up.
    Conze has so far resisted Mediaset's overtures, preferring
to search for ways to cooperate on individual projects.
    Reacting to Rabe's comments, ProSieben said: "No talks are
taking place at the moment on mergers or acquisitions."
    In a statement, ProSieben highlighted work on its adtech
joint venture with RTL, called d-force, and repeated its earlier
invitation to RTL to sign up to Joyn, its streaming venture with
U.S. partner Discovery Inc  DISCA.O .  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N29P3F2
    Rabe, in his FAS interview, said it was vital to deregulate
the European TV industry because the rules governing it predate
the creation of platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Netflix.
    "Competition law does not take into account the forms in
which the U.S. platforms are increasingly coming to dominate the
media and advertising," he said.
    Although he was wearing two hats as the boss of both
Bertelsmann and RTL, Rabe said that did not signify the parent
company would increase its 75% stake in the TV unit, nor would
it seek a delisting.
    "RTL Group is and will remain an independent business," he
said.

 (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
 ((douglas.busvine@tr.com; +49 30 2888 4084; Reuters Messaging:
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