The great marriage of the two television channels will ultimately not take place.
In a press release, Bouygues, RTL Group, TF1 and the M 6 group announce “Today put an end to the planned merger of the TF1 and M 6 groups, announced on May 17, 2021”.
This decision comes after the hearing of the parties by the college of the Competition Authority, on September 5 and 6, to “defend the interest and the necessity of the operation”.
The document explains the “project no longer presented any industrial logic”.
Debates that would not have happened as expected.
“Despite the remedies proposed, it appears that only structural remedies concerning at least the sale of the TF1 channel or the M 6 channel would be such as to allow the authorization of the operation.
The parties therefore concluded that the project no longer presented any industrial logic,” the two parties wrote in a bitter press release.
"Extremely violent opponents" according to the boss of TF1
Bouygues has decided to put an end to the review process of the operation before the Autorité de la concurrence.
And to reproach “that the Authority of competition did not take into account the extent and the speed of the changes of the sector of the French audio-visual one”.
Gathered this Friday, during the great traditional debate of the La Rochelle fiction festival, the two channel bosses had opened up about the difficulties of the operation.
While the merger was currently being studied by the Competition Authority, Gilles Pélisson, CEO of the TF1 group, assured that "the college is thinking" and "it will probably not be an easy decision", referring to " extremely violent opponents of this ambition".
"We have seen the arguments that are opposed to us, we are very aware of it," he said.
Read alsoTF1-M6 fusion: five minutes to understand why it gets stuck
For his part, Thomas Valentin, vice-president of the management board of M 6, estimated that, regardless of the verdict of the Authority, "the market (was) going to have to adapt" to find solutions to "better amortize the costs , the rights" in order to "be able to put more money per program".
Two weeks ago, the audiovisual policeman, Arcom, had validated the acquisition by the operator Altice of the TFX and M 6 Generation (6ter) channels, from which the TF1 and M 6 groups wanted to separate in order to be able to merge.