German commercial broadcast group Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland has unified the shareholding structure of its pay-TV channels.
RTL Television GmbH has taken over the 49.6% stake of TV production company UFA in Passion GmbH on December 31, 2014, an RTL spokesman told Broadband TV News. RTL Television GmbH which previously held 50.4% has, thus, become the sole shareholder.
Passion GmbH which operates pay-TV channel Passion was at the same time merged into RTL Television GmbH and consequently ceased to exist. Like RTL’s other pay-TV channels RTL Crime, RTL Living and GEO Television, Passion is now fully owned and operated by RTL Television GmbH.
German anti-media concentration commission KEK approved the transaction at its latest assembly in Berlin on March 10, 2015.
As Passion used to be co-owned by UFA, it didn’t carry the RTL brand in its name in contrast to RTL Crime and RTL Living which were 100% RTL subsidiaries from day one. Despite the revised shareholding, a name change to RTL Passion is currently not planned, according to the RTL spokesman.
Both RTL and UFA are part of German media company Bertelsmann.
