Thomas Rabe, chief executive of German media giant Bertelsmann, says he hopes to revisit his plan to merge France’s two biggest privately owned broadcasters – M6 and TF1 – which was abandoned in 2022 as a result of regulatory opposition.

Rabe told the FT that a tie-up between Bertelsmann-owned M6 and its larger rival TF1, owned by French conglomerate Bouygues, would be “highly” synergistic. “It would create a true French TV and streaming champion, able to compete with the US platforms,” he said. The two companies had combined revenues of €3.7 billion in 2024, and a combined market capitalisation of €3.6 billion.

Bouygues said that it shared Rabe’s view that a combination of TF1 and M6 still had merit. “We can see putting such a project back on the table when the legal and regulatory conditions permit it,” the company said.

In 2022, regulators found that the deal could create “major competitive risks” in the TV advertising market and said the combined company would need to sell one of its main channels to win approval. That stipulation ultimately killed the deal.

Rabe said he has since been encouraged by a change in mindset in Brussels after what he described as years of “excessively stringent” competition rules.

“We’ve been the victims of these rules more than once […] we have tried to create European champions in media and we were blocked by the regulators — I believe for no good reason,” he said. “Now the European Commission talks about the necessity to reform and promote European champions. Fantastic. Let’s do it.”

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Tags: france, m6, TF1, Thomas Rabe