TF1 and M6 pay for the cancellation of their merger on the stock market

TF1 and M6 had declared that the terms of the operation imposed by the Autorité de la concurrence were untenable

Those were the two values ​​that were to follow when the stock market opened on Monday morning. In the first moments of the exchange, the TF1 title fell by 2.49%, and that of the M6 ​​channel by a little more than 5%. The two SBF 120 readings showed the index’s biggest declines this morning. This correction follows last Friday’s announcement that the merger project between the two television companies would be abandoned.

In a joint press release, TF1 and M6 stated that the conditions of operation set by the Competition Authority had proved unsustainable. ” Despite the proposed additional remedies, only structural remedies affecting at least the sale of the TF1 channel or the M6 ​​channel appear to allow operations to be authorised “, state the representatives of the two chains in their press release. The option of sacrificing the TF1 or M6 channel on the altar of fusion between the two groups was immediately discarded.

Guest this morning on the antenna from BFM business, the President of the Autorité de la concurrence, Benoît Coeuré, justified this decision. The College of Authority “Concluded that the transaction in its current form was not possible because it would have created an ultra-dominant player in television advertising‘ he recounted, with the capture“more than 70%” the total advertising revenue. The new TF1-M6 entity ” would also have had very strong market power in terms of distribution by internet access providers and could not only impose its prices but also increase them to the detriment of viewers‘ said Benoît Coeure.

The President of the competition authority put into perspective the argument repeatedly put forward by defenders of the merger that there was increasingly aggressive competition from American platforms such as Netflix.“Platforms run ads that are targeted because they know everything about you (…) and target people who aren’t watching the same program at the same time.”, he explained. However, in his opinion, television makes the differencea mass medium” who “can reach several million people at the same time“.”To launch a product, launch it on TV“, he confirmed in the light of the consultations of the many players in the sector that have taken place in recent months. Newsbeezer