The two groups have been working on a merger for several months.
Le Monde with AFP
TF1 and M6 groups announced on Friday September 16, in a statement, the abandonment of their merger project. They judge that the merger they wanted with their wishes does not present “no more industrial logic” given the concessions claimed by the competition authority, in particular the transfer of the TF1 or M6 channel.
“Bouygues, RTL Group, TF1 and the M6 group today put an end to the merger project of the TF1 and M6 groups, announced on May 17, 2021”, explain the four entities in a press release. Since “only structural remedies concerning at least the transfer of the TF1 channel or the M6 channel would be likely to allow the authorization of the operation”, the parties concluded “that the project no longer presented any industrial logic”.
The “wedding of the century” of French audiovisual had to give birth to a group weighing more than 70 % of TV advertising revenues and 35 % of the audience.
After two days of closed hearing in early September, before the competition authority and pending its decision in mid-October, doubt had settled. The concessions necessary to tear the agreement of the college of the institution, made up of law specialists and representatives of the economic world, were to be much more important than expected, estimated several sources interviewed by the France-Presse Agency (AFP) . According to one of them, the groups did not arrive on the ground conquered on Monday.