A merger that falls apart. Yesterday, Friday September 16, the TF1 and M6 channels announced in a joint press release that they were abandoning their merger project initiated in May 2021. The marriage no longer presented “any industrial logic” because of the concessions which were claimed from their owners by the Competition Authority.
“Bouygues, RTL Group, TF1 and the M6 group are today putting an end to the project to merge the TF1 and M6 groups, announced on May 17, 2021, inform the four entities in the press release. And to add that since “only structural remedies concerning at least the sale of the TF1 channel or the M6 channel would be such as to allow the authorization of the operation”the parties concluded “that the project no longer presented any industrial logic” with regard to the remedies requested by the Competition Authority.
Last July already, the marriage seemed to fall into the water several personalities had entrusted to the Parisian their skepticism as for the feasibility of the project of synergy of the two chains. “I don’t think it will happen”, said a “great television producer, well introduced to TF1 and personally in favor of the merger with M6”. “Everybody tells me the merger won’t happen“, was sorry for his part a boss of a French digital giant, while an executive of France Télévisions estimated that “the conditions imposed on TF1 and M6 to merge will be too drastic”.
L.T
