CME is close to buying the leading Bulgarian TV station bTV from News Corp.
Unconfirmed agency and local reports say a deal worth in the region of around €500 million is likely to be announced as soon as the beginning of this February.
Should it go through, the amount paid for bTV would be considerably less than the €1.1 billion quoted when the station first went on the market in 2008.
CME is already present in Bulgaria through the TV stations Pro,BG and Ring.BG. It has been linked with both bTV and Poland’s TV Puls for some time and earlier this month announced its exit from Ukraine.
News Corp, on the other hand, is in the process of withdrawing from the CEE TV marketplace.
It has already sold its stakes in Poland’s TV Puls and Serbia’s Fox Televizija and only those in bTV and Latvia’s LNT remain.
