DPG Media and Rossel lay their hands on RTL Belgium

26 june 2021
Today at
09:30

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The decision is made. DPG Media (VTM, HLN) and Rossel (Le Soir) jointly buy the French-language radio and television group RTL Belgium. De Tijd learned that. Price tag: about a quarter of a billion euros.

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Three months after the launch of the sale of RTL Belgium by the European radio and television group RTL

there is white smoke in the file. As expected, the duo DPG Media/Rossel takes the loot. Last week it turned out that they were in the last straight line before the takeover. They beat the Greek Antenna and a consortium around publisher IPM (La Libre, Vers L’Avenir) among others.

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Thanks to the takeover, the two bidders acquire the television channels RTL-TVi, Club RTL and Plug RTL, as well as the radio stations Bel RTL, Radio Contact and Mint. The streaming service RTL Play and the news site RTLInfo.be are also part of it. RTL Belgium is the French-speaking market leader in television and radio. The group’s TV channels had a combined market share of 36.1 percent last year, up from 34.5 percent in 2019.

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The essence

The media group DPG (HLN, VTM) and Rossel (Le Soir) buy RTL Belgium.
The price tag is said to be about a quarter of a billion euros.
The duo’s main competitor was the Greek media group Antenna. IPM (La Libre, Vers L’Avenir) was also in the race.
The deal radically reshapes relations in the French-speaking media sector.

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DPG Media – including the owner of VTM and Het Laatste Nieuws – sees an opportunity in RTL Belgium to obtain national coverage and to develop a stronger position with advertisers. Rossel (owner of Le Soir and co-shareholder of Mediafin) can significantly broaden its media offering in one fell swoop.

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It is not the first time the two media groups have collaborated. For a while they were joint shareholders in Mediafin, the publisher of De Tijd and L’Echo. DPG Media sold its 50 percent stake in Mediafin to Roularta in 2017, when it completely acquired Medialaan.

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RTL Belgium is no stranger to Rossel. Until the end of last year, it was one of the minority shareholders of the French-speaking radio and television group. The RTL group then bought the participation of a number of newspaper publishers in its Belgian subsidiary.

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Three deals

The sale of RTL Belgium is the third and last deal of the RTL group in a few weeks. In France, the French multinational Bouygues and its television subsidiary TF1 will receive 30 percent of the RTL subsidiary M6. in hands.

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In the Netherlands, RTL opted for a merger with Talpa, the media company of media mogul John De Mol. RTL will own 70 percent of the unified group and Talpa, which contributes its activities to RTL Netherlands, 30 percent.

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The sale of RTL Belgium is the third and last deal of the RTL group in a few weeks.

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The deal with our northern neighbors is notable for creating a mastodon in commercial radio and television – even a commercial monopoly according to some. The central question is therefore how the Dutch competition authority assesses the deal.

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DPG Media was also in the running for the acquisition of RTL Nederland. It was an excellent opportunity for the Belgian company to become active in television in the Netherlands, as it is in Belgium with VTM. But that plan failed.

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DPG Media and Rossel lay their hands on RTL Belgium

The essence

Three deals

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