It seems that both Liberty Global and CME have adopted a new strategy of focusing on their core activities.
Earlier this week, when commenting on Chellomedia’s sale to AMC networks, Liberty Global’s president and EO Mike Fries said: “For Liberty Global, this transaction is attractive from both a valuation and liquidity perspective. It also simplifies our business and allows us to focus on our core markets and more strategic programming opportunities.”
Certainly the disposal of Chello Central Europe, one of Chellomedia’s operating units, marks an important shift for Liberty Global in the CEE region. It will no longer be a key player in the content sector, with its activities now primarily the provision of cable and broadband services.
For CME, on the other hand, the decision to focus on its core TV assets has been brought about by the company’s deteriorating financial situation.
A long standing player in the CEE, having launched TV Nova in the Czech Republic nearly two decades ago, CME has never really recovered from the 2008 global economic crisis and subsequent downturn in the TV ad market, on which it is heavily dependent.
Indeed, Michael Del Nin, one of the company’s two new CEOs, has described its latest set of results as “unacceptable” and along with Christoph Mainusch, CME’s other co-CEO, embarked on a radical course of action in order to save the company.
Aside from fast tracking and widening a previously agreed restructuring programme, this is likely to involve the disposal of its theatrical and home video assets.
What is more, the company is not ruling out the sale of some of the core TV assets it says it will now focus on. Over the years, CME has pulled out of such markets as Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, and who is to say that this list will not eventually include one or two more territories.
These are tough times indeed for CME, while Liberty Global, certainly following its recent acquisitions in Germany and the UK, seems to be on the crest of a wave.
