The TF1 and M6 groups announced Friday, September 16, in a press release, the abandonment of their merger project. They judge that the merger they wanted of their wishes does not present “no more industrial logic” given the concessions demanded of them by the Competition Authority, in particular the sale of the TF1 or M6 channel.
“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”, explain the four entities in a press release. 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 have concluded “that the project no longer presented any industrial logic”.
The “marriage of the century” of the French audiovisual was to give birth to a group weighing more than 70% of TV advertising revenue and 35% of the audience.
After two days of hearings behind closed doors, at the beginning of September, before the Competition Authority and pending its decision in mid-October, doubt had arisen. The concessions necessary to snatch the agreement from the college of the institution, composed of legal specialists and representatives of the economic world, were to be much greater than expected, then estimated several sources interviewed by Agence France-Presse (AFP) . According to one of them, the groups did not arrive in conquered territory on Monday.
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