Germany

[DE] Green Light for RTL Group's Takeover of News Channel n-tv

IRIS 2006-6:1/16

Carmen Palzer

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

On 12 April 2006, the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartels Office) decided to allow RTL Television GmbH Deutschland (RTL)to acquire sole ownership of news channel n-tv Nachrichtenfernsehen GmbH & Co. KG (n-tv).

In February, the Bundeskartellamt had expressed reservations about the planned takeover on the grounds that it would protect and strengthen the collective dominant market position held by the Luxembourg-based RTL Group and ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG in the television advertising market. According to the Cartels Office President, this threat to competition remains. However, investigations had shown that, even if the merger were prohibited, n-tv's market potential and advertising customers would remain with the duopoly, since the channel would be closed down if the merger did not go through. Therefore, the takeover was permitted as a rescue merger.

On 8 May 2006, the Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich (Commission on Concentration in the Media - KEK) also reached a positive verdict relating to RTL's acquisition of all shares in n-tv. The planned takeover did not raise any concerns regarding diversity of opinion, since neither the purchaser nor the group to which it belonged would achieve dominant power of opinion as a result of the planned acquisition.