The European Commission has cleared the way for RTL Group to complete the acquisition of a 47.3% stake in German news broadcaster n-tv.
Back in August, RTL agreed to buy the TV and radio assets of publishing group Georg van Holtzbrinck, including the stake in n-tv, for E170 million (see
RTL Acquires German Media Group). That deal has now been rubber stamped after it was found that no competition regulations were being flouted.
In a statement a European Union executive commented: “The Commission’s investigation has shown that n-tv is still a very small player on the German free-TV market. Therefore the operation will only have a minor impact on RTL’s position on that market and will not lead to the creation or strengthening of a dominant position.”
Last year, RTL failed in a bid to wrest away AOL’s 49% stake in n-tv. The two companies will now jointly run the 24-hour rolling news channel which has a market share of less than 1% of the German television audience
