04. 09. 2008

RUPERT MURDOCK SELLS EAST EUROPEAN TV STATIONS

Belgrade, September 4, 2008 (Blic) – Rupert Murdock has commenced selling his TV stations in South East Europe. The Bulgarian TV “bTV”, a part of Murdock’s “News Corporation”, will officially change hands by the end of the year -- confirmed Maria Stefanova, the president of the Bulgarian Council for Electronic Media. That news confirms the rumor that Murdock was selling its piece of the media cake in that part of Europe, which includes the Serbian branch of TV “Fox”; the two most serious purchasers currently seem to be the two powerful groups – RTL and CME.

The media magnate, Rupert Murdock, is currently finalizing two big purchases – the one of the Spanish satellite platform “Digital+” and the German “Premiere”. Those two are satellite program packages to which users subscribe, which is a continual source of income for the owner. Hence, Murdock has decided that it was high time to sell commercial TV stations in Latvia (LNT), Bulgaria (bTV), Poland and Serbia.

- “bTV” will be sold simultaneously with the similar processes in Serbia, Latvia and Poland, where “News Corporation” has its TV stations – said Stefanova to the Bulgarian media.

The “News Corporation” received the national frequency in 2006, and the program started about a year and a half ago. At the same tender, the German giant RTL remained without a frequency, but has not given up reaching the Serbian media sphere, and is now one of the serious bidders. Neither has the prestigious British corporation CME given up on doing business in Serbia.

- RTL is more interested in buying, but the problem is the unrealistically high price for the Serbian “Fox”, which was set by “News Corporation”. Therefore, it is possible that RTL will try to enter the Serbian market via another TV station – claimed a “Blic” source informed about the Serbian media sphere.

Let us remind the public that only several months ago Murdock’s company “News Corporation” had hired American bankers from the “Lehman Brothers”, who deal in investments and risk appraisals, to estimate the strategic options for selling the three East European TV stations they own. Otherwise, there are no legal obstructions to the selling TV “Fox”.

- All the TV stations which have received the RRA license have the legal right to be sold and change the ownership structure, but the license itself cannot be sold. As far as TV “Fox” is concerned, it would mean that they had the right to sell 49% of company share, which is the ownership of Rupert Murdock, while the other 51% is owned by private persons from Belgrade – said for “Blic” Goran Karadžić, the vice-president of the executive board of the Serbian Republic Radio-Diffusion Agency. He added: “RRA will strictly control the change of hands. There are several important points we will not tolerate. We will not allow media concentration or media monopole by one owner. We will not consent to the owner carrying out the sale via suspicious companies from Virgin or similar islands; the money origin has to be transparent and we must know who the people behind it are.”

The RRA vice-president announces the amendment of the relevant law. – We are working on changes and amendments of the Radio-Diffusion Law, which will be more precise in terms of sales and purchase.

RTL also interested in “Avala”

If no agreement is reached with the “News Corporation” about the price for the Serbian “Fox”, there is a realistic chance that RTL may be interested in “Avala”, which also has national coverage, and has been improving its program and rating in the recent months.

The exclusion of Montenegro

Three months ago, the “News Corporation” returned the national frequency previously allocated in Montenegro. Although they even broadcast a test signal for a while, they did not broadcast a real program; one of the reasons seems to be that that market turned out to be ineligible for the investment.