Sun, Nov 08 2009

Time Warner closes acquisition of 31% in CME

Tue, May 19 2009 13:40 CET byNick Iliev 1294 Views
Time Warner closes acquisition of 31% in CME

Photo: Wikipedia

American media giant Time Warner has said that it closed the acquisition of 31 per cent in Central European Media Enterprise Group (CME) for $241.5 million.

Time Warner thus establishes a foothold on the Bulgarian market, where CME owns channels TV2 and Ring TV. CME owns stations in six other Eastern European countries: Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

CME stepped in Bulgaria in August 2008, when it bought the two stations in a $172 million deal. Its revenue in Bulgaria in 2008 was $600 000, Bulgarian daily Dnevnik reported.

Time Warner bought 19 million shares, including 14.5 million shares at $12 a share and 4.5 million shares at $15 a share. Additionally, Time Warner has agreed to allow CME founder Ronald Lauder to vote for Time Warner’s shares of CME for a period spanning at least four years, subject to certain conditions. Lauder has pledged to support Time Warner’s appointment of two of its designees to CME’s board of directors.

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Central European Media Enterprises reports increase in losses

CME is the owner of the Bulgarian based PRO.BG and Ring.BG television channels.

All for one

Step by step, private television stations have started redistributing the market of broadcasting rights for sport events, creating, in the end, a situation of complete market saturation that was almost unthinkable a few years ago. For the first time, the most profitable and attractive football club tournaments in Europe, the Uefa Champions League and the Uefa Cup Tournament (or the Uefa Europa League, as it will be called as of 2009), will be shown on cable channels, and not on one of the three terrestrial broadcasters.

CME bags Champions League broadcasting rights for Bulgaria

TV2 and RingTV, the two channels owned by Central European Media Enterprises Ltd (CME) in Bulgaria, will broadcast the two Uefa tournaments - Champions League and the Europa League that will replace the Uefa Cup - starting from autumn 2009, Dnevnik daily reported on December 4. CME bought the broadcast rights and its TV2 will replace News Corp.'s bTV as the terrestrial channel carrying the matches. It will broadcast one Champions Leaguen match every Tuesdays and Wednesdays. RingTV will show two Europa League matches on Thursdays.

Buy me a TV channel

Within just two days, two large international companies paid a total of 731 million euro for two national and one cable Bulgarian broadcaster at the end of July 2008. Another television channel, which happens to be the biggest private broadcaster in the country, is reportedly preparing to be sold at a price that could reach 1.1 billion euro. Although it is far from European Union digitalisation standards, Bulgaria seems to have

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