Kirch up-date...........................................
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CORRECTED-Kirch, Bertelsmann struggle to save
07:26 a.m. May 08, 1998 Eastern
By Amelia Torres
BRUSSELS, May 8 (Reuters) - The partners in a German digital pay-television deal were struggling on Friday to win European Commission approval for their plans, but industry sources doubted that the efforts of Bertelsmann, a key player in the deal, were genuine.
German media mogul Leo Kirch, the other German media partner in the alliance, was due to meet Karel Van Miert in Berlin later on Friday in a bid to persuade the European antitrust chief to clear the deal, EU and industry sources told Reuters.
Bertelsmann's head of finance Siegfried Luther and Ewald Walgenbach, deputy chairman of CLT-UFA, were also due to meet Van Miert, who is in Berlin to attend an unrelated conference organised by Deutsche Bank. CLT-UFA groups the TV interests of Bertelsmann AG and Belgium's Audiofina.
It will be at least the third time in less than two weeks that Kirch has met EU officials about the alliance, as a June 3 deadline approaches for the Commission to rule on the controversial pay-TV alliance.
Bertelsmann, in contrast, has been sending secondary figures to EU meetings and its chairman Mark Woessner told Reuters on Thursday that he thought the Commission would block the deal.
''If you had asked me before what I thought, I would have said the deal still had a good chance (of getting regulatory approval), but this was a surprise for us,'' a source close to the talks said.
''When you go into negotiations what you need is strong backing,'' the source added.
The Commission has expressed very strong concerns that the deal, which also involves former telecoms monopoly Deutsche Telekom, could create a lasting dominant position in the German-speaking pay-TV market. |
