ProSiebenSat.1 Media

Infobox Company
company_name = ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG
slogan = The Power of Television
company_
company_type = Public
foundation = October 2 2000
location = Unterföhring, Germany
key_people = Götz Mäuser, Chairman
Lord Clive Hollick, Vice-Chairman
Guillaume de Posch, CEO
Patrick Tillieux ,COO
Axel Salzmann, CFO
industry = Media
products = Television, Radio, Magazines
revenue = profit €2.1 billion (2006) [ [http://en.prosiebensat1.com/imperia/md/content/investor_relations/2007/GB2007/AnnualReport_neu_1.pdf Annual Report 2006] ]
net_income =
num_employees = 2,976 (2006)
homepage = [http://en.prosiebensat1.com/ English homepage]
[http://www.prosiebensat1.com/ German homepage]
footnotes =
intl = "yes"

ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a European media conglomerate, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses. It was formed on October 2nd 2000 by merger of German TV broadcasters ProSieben Media AG and Sat.1 SatellitenFernsehen GmbH. Through takeover of SBS Broadcasting Group on June 27th 2007 it now has operations in 13 European countries.
The headquarters are located in Unterföhring/Munich.

History

ProSiebenSat.1 programs had low ratings because of inconvincing marketing efforts. So ProSiebenSat.1 was bought by the American media tycoon Haim Saban for approximately $700 million. After Saban lost interest in the company because the programs could not compete with Bertelsmann's channels RTL, Vox, and Super RTL, he started an auction to sell the company. Possible bidders were Axel Springer AG, Dogan Group of Turkey, Permira/Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and some others like Goldman Sachs/APEX. The Axel Springer AG's bid was rejected by a federal competition commission, "Bundeskartellamt", because of the influence of Springer in Germany's media who owns already the nations most selling tabloid "BILD" and the newspaper "Die Welt". On December 14 2006, Germany's "Handelsblatt" reported that the winner of the bid was the consortium of Permira/KKR. A possible bidder for the company was Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Mediaset and former Italian prime minister. On June 27 2007, ProSieben bought SBS Broadcasting for the total sum of €3.3 billion. SBS was also owned by Permira/KKR.

Divisions

German language Free-to-air, Pay-TV- and Transaction-TV Channels

Former Channels

sonnenklar TV was sold of to BigXtra in September 2005.

European Free-to-air, Pay-TV- and Radio channels

References

[http://en.prosiebensat1.com/imperia/md/content/investor_relations/2008/Geschaeftsbericht_2007/GB07_en_complete_version.pdf Annual Report 2007]