Kirch secures control of Teuton cable
Nabs all but 5% of rival CLT/Ufa's stake in Premiere
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For the 45% stake, which gives Kirch 95% of Premiere, Kirch will pay DM1.565 billion ($874 million). The deal must still be cleared by CLT/Ufa's advisory board and media watchdogs, but little resistance is expected.
Leo Kirch is now expected to merge his digital pay TV platform DF1 with Premiere, which has 1.7 million subscribers and around 470,000 signed up for its digital platform Premiere digital. Reports suggest that Hamburg-based station Premiere will now be relocated to Kirch and DF1's center in Munich.
CLT/Ufa will now concentrate on free TV. The company said it maintained a 5% stake in Premiere because of the market conditions which make it necessary to purchase pay TV rights alongside free-TV rights.
"The chances for pay TV in Germany have gotten dramatically bad," said Rolf-Schmidt Holtz, chairman of the CLT/Ufa board. "The decisions made by the EU and Berlin cartel authorities hugely shrank the possibilities of developing the market in an economically sound way."
