The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

RTL and ProSieben will “sooner or later” come together in Germany, according to Bertelsmann Group

2022-01-27T13:59:42.171Z


Hearing this Thursday in the Senate, Thomas Rabe, the CEO of the German conglomerate owner of M6, considers the consolidation of national players in Europe "imperative in the face of the American streaming giants".


"The consolidation of national players in Europe is imperative to preserve them against the giants of American streaming, and more and more powerful Chinese companies in video like TikTok"

, hammered Thomas Rabe, CEO of the German conglomerate Bertelsmann before the commission. investigation into media concentration in the Senate.

The group, which achieved 19 billion in turnover in 2020, owns RTL Group (68 television channels and 31 radio stations in Europe), the world's largest publishing group, Penguin Random House, and of BMG in the world of music.

Read alsoJean-Luc Chetrit: “

Television advertising is unique and brands need this market to remain competitive

The German businessman was questioned Thursday, January 27 by senators on the proposed merger of the TF1 group, a subsidiary of Bouygues, and the M6 ​​group, a 48% subsidiary of RTL Group.

The first two private channels in France confirmed their merger plan last spring, in which Bouygues would take 30% of the new entity while Bertelsmann would retain 16% of the new entity.

Investments streaming

Incumbent operators Tf1 and M6 have for some time been in direct competition with American streaming giants like Disney, Netflix or Amazon: in the creation of content, in productions, and in the talents working in production

”. For example, Disney recently announced that it will invest $33 billion in content production in 2022.

To cope with these international players and “

retain the audience in the face of declining television consumption

”, Thomas Rabe considered that it was

“indispensable”

to invest massively in original content and in quality SVOD.

“We will never reach the investment capacities of the American platforms, but we have a way of distinguishing ourselves by playing the local and European content card”

.

Without evoking figures, Thomas Rabe expressed the desire to concentrate the bulk of investments in streaming around the SVOD Salto platform (TF1, M6 and France TV), which blew its first candle last October.

Salto may have arrived a little too late in France.

".

The president of France Télévision Delphine Ernotte recently explained that Salto had exceeded 700,000 subscribers.

As a reference on the European continent, the CEO of Bertelsmann spoke of the

“beginning of success”

of his German streaming service RTL Plus.

“We have exceeded 2.6 million subscribers in Germany.

We are aiming for 8 million within a few years.

We plan to invest more than 500 million euros per year from 2022 to strengthen our service, and extend it to audio and text.

Thomas Rabe also spoke of an increase in investments around its technological subsidiary Bedrock Streaming, used by 6Play, Salto, but also RTL Belgium, RTL Croatia and RTL Hungary.

“Our goal is to provide local players with technology comparable to American suppliers.

To fight on the technical part

.

Definition of the relevant market

To carry out their merger project, TF1 and M6 wish to convince the Competition Authority to redefine the relevant advertising market by aggregating television and digital.

“We want to prove to the Autorité de la concurrence that there is a clear convergence between TV advertising and digital advertising: there are substitution effects in the choices of advertisers, the purchase of advertising space is done in an increasingly unified way, and the same logic applies to the price at which advertising is set.

This dynamic will only be confirmed over time,”

he defends.

Thomas Rabe also recalled that digital now represents half of the global advertising market.

Google and Facebook capture more than 70% of the digital market.

"

I am convinced that if the consolidation operations in France and the Netherlands are carried out under acceptable conditions, RTL and ProSieben could get closer in Germany

", concluded Thomas Rabe during his hearing. On Friday, Nicolas de Tavernost, boss of M6 and future CEO of the marriage with TF1, will be subject to questions from senators as part of this commission of inquiry into media concentration.

By selling Prisma Media to Vivendi last year, Bertelsmann had turned the page on the press, to focus in particular on the world of publishing.

Today, the group, owner of Penguin Random House, continues to defend its plan to buy Simon & Schuster (owned by ViacomCBS) for 2.18 billion dollars.

The US Department of Justice wants to block the merger with its publishing subsidiary Penguin Random House.

A literary "

bomb

" that the French market is following very closely, while Vivendi, which owns the publishing group Editis (number two in the country), launched a takeover bid on the Lagardère group, which owns the number one, Hachette .

Source: lefigaro

All life articles on 2022-01-27

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.