A group of Chilean capital, local businessman Gustavo Yankelevich, DirecTV and the local media holding company Alpha Media, are the main interested parties in the race to retain Telefe.
In fact, last week the foreign conglomerate and the Werthein family, which owns the satellite TV signal for the region, made a joint offer to keep the channel that currently belongs to Paramount Global and It is the one with the largest audience in Argentina.
The mega companies seeking to buy Telefé
However, sources familiar with the details behind this operation assured iProfesional that The offer was rejected by the North American network which, in turn, is in the middle of a bid between mega communications groups that want to buy it, as Skydance Media that had the option to close the transaction last week, but the “due diligence” concluded last Friday, May 3, and they entered the scene Sony Pictures and the Apollo investment fundwith an offer for US$26,000 million for Paramount’s assets in the North American market.
At the local level, the North American multimedia also received proposals to sell several of its signals in the interior and, after having acquired Telefe in 2016 as part of the merger of Viacom and CBS, began to divest certain assets that it operated in several provinces. how it happened with the owner of the newspaper La Capital and Televisión Litoral, Gustavo Scaglione, who bought Canal 8 of Tucumán and Canal 11 of Salta from the Americans.
In the case of Telefe Rosario, former Channel 5, it would have started conversations with the Vignati brothers, owners of Grupo Plus, the Rosario multimedia company made up of Radio Sí, the Rosario Plus portal and streaming.
“Telefe is a Buenos Aires-based broadcast network that reaches 95% of homes in Argentina. Its studios produce more than 3,000 hours of Spanish-language video content annually, which are distributed across eight regional channels. It produces seven of the 10 most watched programs that are broadcast locally. And it also manages a catalog of more than 33,000 hours of content”, says the official Paramount Global website.
The owner of Radio Rivadavia and the Alpha Media group, Marcelo Fígoli, is one of those interested in staying with Telefe.
It is also highlighted there that the brand has an international channel, Telefe Internacional, “which reaches 17 million subscribers in 17 countries every day.”
Mercado Libre, in retreat?
The first of the versions that sounded strongly is that Marcos Galperin, owner and founder of Mercado Libre, would be the buyer. Information that the journalist Jorge Rial published on its social networks, but that it was not possible to confirm in the local market or with the TV operator, and that it was classified as “fake” from the Mercado Libre offices.
However, the Argentine businessman currently based in Uruguay would not be the only option for a change of shareholders in the channel that broadcasts from the Buenos Aires town of Martínez.
But regardless of Galperín’s interest or not, the truth is that the conversations with the rest of the interested parties are advancing to the point that the owner of Alpha Media, Marcelo Fígoli, would also be finishing up a proposal directed to the local Paramount board for analysis.
Currently, the owner of the largest artistic production company in Argentina, Fenix Entertainment Group, controls a pool of radio stations that includes Rivadavia; Meter; Rock pop; Cologne; Splendid; San isidro labrador; Los 40 Principales and Blue, among others, in addition to being the owner of the NA news agency; of Parque de la Costa and having recently bought the Burgos club, from the Spanish second division of football.
In the case of the Wertheins, it is the part of the family that In November 2021, it took control of 100% of the capital of Vrioa company that offers live and On Demand content services through DirecTV Latin America and the Caribbean and has 11 million subscribers.
Gerardo Werthein, who heads a media investment group that owns DirecTV, also wants to buy Telefe.
With the purchase of DirecTV, the Wertheins took a weight off AT&T, which since its merger with DirecTV throughout America, saw the satellite TV business in Latin America as a burden (with the exception of the participation it maintains in Mexico in alliance with Televisa). In any case, the Argentine group was left with one of the three most important companies in the pay TV market in the region, and the second with the largest market share in Argentina.
In November 2022, the holding company headed by Gerardo Werthein, together with Gabriel Hochbaum, took control of the Uruguayan journalistic group El Observador, a medium with which they are committed to investing heavily in digital innovation and in the generation of regional journalistic content to transform into a leading Spanish-speaking digital medium.
Regarding Yankelevich, there is not much information that emerged about his interest in returning to Telefe, where in 1988 he took over as Programming Manager when it was Channel 11. Then, when the station was privatized and was renamed as it is now, he continued as its artistic director until 1999, managing to position the channel in first place in the audience of Argentine television, which today maintains.
In 2000, upon leaving Telefe, he founded his own production company RGB Entertainment with Víctor González and in 2016 he assumed the programming management of the Monte Carlo TV channel in Uruguay until May 2017, when he left the channel amid poor results. rating.
“Bitter” Kirchnerist memory
In 2008, the Kirchner government tried to buy Telefe, which was then owned by the Spanish group Telefónica, through an intermediary: the Patagonian businessman, former cadet of Néstor Kirchner and all-terrain media operator Rudy Ulloa Igor, who would have offered US$320 million. by the television station.
At that time, Ulloa, a former driver turned media entrepreneur in Santa Cruz and political operator in Buenos Aires, was the owner of El Periódico Austral and Canal 2 of Santa Cruz.
Kirhnerism, through Rudy Ulloa, wanted to buy the channel in 2008.
But the appearance in the middle of a third of the weight of the Clarín group left the negotiation fallen or, at least, paralyzed and frustrating – at that time – a new attempt by a government to neutralize the power and growth of the country’s strongest communications conglomerate.
Guaranteed sale
In the market it is claimed that Paramount has been “moving its chips towards a sale” for some time now, at least since they divided its structure into three two years ago to divide the areas of streaming, cinema and broadcast.
In this sense and although the possible landing of Mercado Libre is rejected, it is maintained that The company would need content and production for Mercado Play and compete, which would be achieved with Telefe’s capacity and content.
In fact, Paramount’s entry into the channel was precisely aimed at generating local production and exporting, a combo that failed mainly due to devaluations and the price of the dollar in the country.
In this context, a report from the specialized media Axios reiterates the possible merger of the North American holding company with the studios Warner Bros., Discovery, CBS and CNN unitsand other cable television channels.
The report maintains that David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery; Bob Bakish, CEO of Paramount Global, and Shari Redstone, owner of National Amusements Inc. (NAI), Paramount’s parent company, would have met to start the first negotiations and explore the competitive advantages that would represent having a streaming platform that combines the Max and Paramount content.
Likewise, it is pointed out that the entertainment company would sell “a little less than half” of the rights of his music catalog for nearly US$500 million, according to Variety. In any case, it is not specified whether Warner Bros. intends to acquire Paramount Global or the majority holding company and it is assured that both options are under discussion.
If the agreement is sealed, a mega holding would be created with an approximate value of almost US$40 billion if it is taken into account that Warner Bros. Discovery has a market valuation of US$29 billion and Paramount Global of US$10. ,000 million.
The integration of both businesses would create a new giant in the entertainment industry and in the media sector of which Telefe would not be a part, which would be put up for sale.
From Telefónica to Paramount
In March 2016, it was learned that the media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting System (a subsidiary of Time Warner) was interested in acquiring Telefe and its television channels, with the aim of expanding its presence in this segment in Latin America where, since 2010 , controls the Chilevisión broadcaster, offering $400 million.
With the endorsement of the Kirchner government, Telefónica would have reached a sales agreement with Turner, while a note from the American agency Bloomberg reported that the intention of the sale was to reduce the debt of the Spanish group after the failed sale of the British subsidiary of its subsidiary O2 to Hutchison Whampoa due to the fact that the European Commission had vetoed the transaction.
According to the Spanish newspaper Expansión, Turner’s intention to purchase Telefe would have also generated interest from other groups to the point that Time Warner was mentioned, so that it would be operated by its Latin American subsidiary Turner Broadcasting System Latin America.
But at the end of the same month, it was reported that the operation had not been completed, and that its possible sale to the American group Viacom (a subsidiary of National Amusements), owner of MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount, was being negotiated.
On November 3, it was announced that Viacom had reached an agreement to buy Telefe after submitting an offer for US$345 million. At that time, the National Communications Entity (ENACOM) approved the transfer of Telefe and its licenses to Viacom on March 30, 2017.
