German broadcaster ProSiebensat.1 has rejected a proposal by top Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset -- which has been rebranded as MediaForEurope (MFE) -- to split up the company in what amounts to a substantial setback to MFE’s ambitions to build a pan-European broadcaster. MFE, which is headed by Pier Silvio Berlusconi -- who is the son of the late former Italian Prime Minister and TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi -- owns a a nearly 30% stake in ProSieben, which makes them the...
Mediaset
Pier
Silvio
Berlusconi
Deputy Chairman / CEO
Berlusconi, who once worked in marketing at Mediaset’s Publitalia advertising unit, moved to broadcasting to program its youth-oriented Italia 1 channel and steer programming for all three of its national channels starting in 1996. The result: Mediaset is now a multi-channel, multi-platform broadcaster with free-to-air, pay-TV operations and both linear and non-linear content, thanks largely to Berlusconi’s 2005 launch of pay-as-you-go Mediaset Premium. In 2019, Premium was fully integrated into rival Sky Italia’s offering through a content-sharing deal when the company set up the pan-European MediaÂForEurope to operate in Italy, Spain and Germany. Mediaset has been embroiled in a multibillion-euro dispute with Vivendi ever since a 2016 collapsed pay-TV deal, but with Berlusconi and Vivendi CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine in active talks, a compromise could come soon.
