ITALY / An agreement Vivendi/Mediaset being negotiated

While at the beginning of the week we learned that the French group Vivendi had approached the Italian Mediaset “for cooperation […] over content”, the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore gave details on March 24^th of the progress of negotiations.

The newspaper said the Franco-Tunisian producer Tarak Ben Ammar would be responsible for leading discussions on a merger agreement in three areas: content, distribution and pay TV. Mr. Ben Ammar knows both parties well since he is an advisor to Vivendi, and his company Quinta Communications is a partner of Mediaset (Mediaset and Quinta are joint shareholders of the Tunisian channel Nessma TV).

Il Sole 24 Ore mentions a possible exchange of shares between Vivendi and Mediaset, of around 3%. If this merger goes ahead, the two groups could set up a common European platform for pay VOD to compete with the US giant Netflix.

Sources: Il Sole 24 Ore, Telecompaper