Bertelsmann stands by Premiere, warns of delay
05-27-98 08:27 EDT
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ÿÿÿÿ BONN, May 27 (Reuters) - Michael Dornemann, the Bertelsmann board member in charge of television activities, said on Wednesday the European Commission's rejection of its pay TV alliance with Leo Kirch would delay deployment of digital TV in Germany.
ÿÿÿÿ Dornemann told Reuters in a telephone interview that Bertelsmann , Europe's biggest media group, would concentrate efforts on its Premiere pay TV channel, but that it would no longer be possible to make a broad digital launch.
ÿÿÿÿ "Premiere will continue to be the centre of focus," said Dornemann from his Munich office. "But we will have to make a smaller effort."
ÿÿÿÿ "Developments will be set back, that is sad," he said, adding that Bertelsmann had already invested just under one billion marks in Premiere.
ÿÿÿÿ The European Commission said earlier that it had rejected a planned pay TV alliance between Bertelsmann, Kirch, the Bavarian media tycoon, and phone giant Deutsche Telekom fearing the tie-up would create a monopoly.
ÿÿÿÿ Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert blamed Bertelsmann for the failure of the deal, saying the company was not willing to accept compromise proposals.
ÿÿÿÿ But Dornemann sharply rejected the allegation, saying the company had made a number of concessions but that Van Miert went too far by demanding that Premiere allow other cable TV operators to market its programming.
ÿÿÿÿ "It is certainly clever put to put the blame on us after making unacceptable demands," said Dornemann.
ÿÿÿÿ Premiere's digital package contains a mixture of sports, feature films, soft pornography, documentaries and talk shows.
ÿÿÿÿ Cable TV operators, however, did not want to deliver Premiere's programming as a complete digital package, or bouquet in industry jargon, but to pick and choose the best programmes and repackage them with other programmes.
ÿÿÿÿ "The most aggravating point is that not only were we asked to concede the distribution and marketing of our product by others, but that they make a profit by doing so and we make a loss," said Dornemann.
ÿÿÿÿ "They would have been able to package programmes themselves and, using our programme as the locomotive, come up with a better offer to compete against us. That was not acceptable to us," he said.
ÿÿÿÿ Dornemann added that Kirch had given the Commission the impression that its demands were acceptable but had not consulted Bertelsmann first.
ÿÿÿÿ He said that Bertelsmann would continue to invest "quite a bit" in Premiere, but not at the same pace or volume as in the past, which would also have an impact on programming for the consumer.
ÿÿÿÿ "The programme will no longer be as broad and the volume of investment will not be as high," he said. |
