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TS News - New Shareholder Structure For Telepiu

TELE-satellit News, 13 August 1996

New Shareholder Structure For Telepiu
  ROME, Italy, 96/07/13 (SATELIT TV VIDEO) -- The German media group Kirch
has increased its share in Italian pay-TV network Telepiu from 33.6% to 57%.
Kirch bought an additional 23.4% from Italian real-estate magnate Renato
della Valle whose value is estimated to be worth around 260 billion lira.
However, Kirch has already announced plans to sell 12.5% of its shares to
another Telepiu shareholder, Johan Ruperts Nethold.

  When that happens, Ruperts and Kirch will each hold 45% of shares with the
remaining 10% staying with Silvio Berlusconis TV holding company Mediaset.
Robert Hersov who represents Nethold in the board of Telepiu in a recent
interview to Italian weekly L Espresso said that his company has already
invested 500 million dollars in Telepiu and that sum includes TV rights for
football matches (203 billion a lira for three years starting from this
autumn), as well as satellite costs.

  Investments in the new digital service will be around 700 billion lira,
out of which 200 billion have already been spent. Hersov said that they are
expecting to reach a million subscribers by the end of this year (currently
800,000), but that number includes existing subscibers to the terrestrial
service as well as new subscribers to the digital satellite service (DSTV).

  Telepiu will start bringing money to its shareholders after the one
million subscriber mark is reached. He added that Telepiu is interesting in
cooperating with RAI and the state tele-communications giant Stet, similarly
to the agreement recently signed with media company Cecchi Gori Group. This
cooperation includes thematic channels, channel packages and other projects.

  By: Branislav Pekic
  Source: Satelit TV Video, Belgrade, Yugoslavia


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