The Prohibition of the Proposed Springer-ProSiebenSat.1-Merger: How much Economics in German Merger Control?

Budzinski/Wacker: Springer-ProSiebenSat.1-Merger

ers with considerable fringe competition, the TV advertising market is dominated by
two private TV-networks (P7S1 and RTLGroup). Public television (ARD and ZDF)
attracts more than 40 % of the overall audience but is restricted concerning its offer-
ing on the advertising market due to its character as predominantly financed through
public fees. As a consequence, the TV advertising market shows a duopoly by P7S1
and the RTLGroup, each representing a 45 % market share. The RTLGroup is a sub-
sidiary of Bertelsmann, the major media company in Germany and one of the largest
world-wide. Besides the RTLGroup, other major subsidiaries of Bertelsmann are
Random House (books), SonyBMG (music) and Gruner+Jahr (magazines).¹ Together
with AS, Bertelsmann (via Gruner+Jahr) is engaged in the rotogravure company Pri-
novis. Apart from its pre-merger share in P7S1, AS is no considerable player on the
TV market.²

Figure 1: TV Audience and TV Advertising Market Shares in 2004

Advertising Market Share 2004

22%

28%

P7S1

Others

10%

ZDF

14%

5%

RTL II

RTLGroup

21%

ARD

5%

ZDF
3%

45%

39%

2% 6%

Others _{RTL II}

ARD includes regional stations (“Dritte Programme”).
Source: Compiled from Bundeskartellamt (2006).

Instead, AS core competence is the newspaper market, where the AS product “BILD-
Zeitung”, Germany’s leading daily boulevard newspaper, stands out. As newspapers
are not distributed freely, both the newspaper reader market and the newspaper adver-
tising market are relevant. Concerning the reader market, the Bundeskartellamt (2006:

¹ Gruner+Jahr publishes numerous weekly and monthly magazines, the most well-known of which is
STERN. Via Gruner+Jahr Bertelsmann also has an interest in the SPIEGEL Verlag.

Additionally, AS holds a 27% share in “Hamburg 1”, a regional TV station with negligible market
shares.

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