14/03/2003 - The saga of the German media giant appears to have reached a turning point following the Franco-US bid of Euros1.8bn

Barring last-minute changes, the fate of German media giant KirchMédia seems to have been decided. Following the Euros1.8b bid made by a syndicate formed by U.S. billionaire producer Haim Saban and French broadcaster, TF1, the only other contender in the race to buy the troubled German media giant which went bankrupt in April 2002 , German publisher Heinrich Bauer, said he was bowing out.
If the deal goes through, it will be the French privately-owned network’s first incursion into the international media market although its share of the cost (Euros900m) will be heavy burden to bear, especially since TF1 is about to buy back total ownership of Eurosport and 66 per cent of French digital satellite broadcaster, TPS.
However the KirchMedia deal is just too appetising to leave on the table since it includes a majority share in TV channels ProsiebenSat.1 (Pro7, Sat.1, Kabel 1, N24)and a huge library of 13,000 films and around 3000 TV series. Should the Saban-TF1 deal go through, ProsiebenSat1 will stand together with RTL as Germany’s leading private TV networks, alongside the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. The Saban-TF1 could be accepted by Sunday 16 March and finalised by 19 March although a last-minute come-back by Bauer cannot be ruled out.

(Translated from French)