The FINANCIAL — News Corporation has acquired a 14.58 percent stake in Premiere AG, the leading German pay-TV operator for 287 million Euro in cash, company reported.
“Pay-TV is a core business for News Corporation and it’s a category that’s thriving across Europe with a multitude of new services and innovations. We see enormous potential for growth in Germany and believe the time is right to invest in its foremost pay-TV business, Premiere,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation’s Chairman and Chief Executive.
With over 10 million viewers and more than four million subscribers, Premiere AG is the leading pay-TV operator in Germany and Austria.
News Corporation’s European pay-TV holdings include a 39 percent stake in BSkyB, the number one pay-television group in the U.K. with more than 8.7 million subscribers, and its wholly-owned Sky Italia, Italy’s leading pay-television provider with over four million subscribers.
In December 2007 News Corporation announced that it will sell eight of its owned-and-operated FOX network affiliated television stations to Oak Hill Capital Partners for approximately $1.1 billion in cash.
News Corporation had total assets as of September 30, 2007 of approximately US$64 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$30 billion. News Corporation is a diversified entertainment company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin. In Georgia News Corporation owns 30 % of Imedi TV.
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