Teutonic rivals join to fight Liberty
Critics fear cable monopoly
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Liberty Media is set to shell out $4.7 billion to acquire from Deutsche Telekom six regional cable systems with access to 10 million households -- regulator approval pending. Liberty, subsidiary UPC and fellow Denver player Callahan are also looking at taking over the Deutsche Bank-owned cabler Tele Columbus, which reaches an additional 2.2 million households in Germany.
Fresh monopoly?
Critics ranging from government regulators to nervous execs at the Kirch Group fear a new monopoly arising, with Liberty perhaps more interested in airing its own content rather than in including local broadcasters in its cable packages.
Pubcasters ARD and ZDF and the association of commercial broadcasting and telecommunication (VPRT), which reps the country's commercial TV and radio broadcasters, have inked a joint document calling for the new cable providers to set up a framework for technical and operative management of the soon-to-be upgraded cable systems.
Foreign gatekeeper
Public and commercial broadcasters have been sweating about the dangers an all-powerful gatekeeper could pose, especially if it is Malone, whose Liberty Media may choose to fill up to 12 million-plus households with foreign content. According to the state regulations, only a third of cable channels have to be reserved for local public and commercial broadcasters.
"There's a new player on the market," Dieter Hahn, deputy chief exec at Kirch, recently told German weekly Der Spiegel. "We are now dealing with completely different terms of competition."
