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Berlin - Faced with strong opposition from Germany's monopoly authorities, publishing giant Axel Springer AG offered Wednesday to sell off television interests in a bid to rescue its planned takeover of the country's biggest commercial TV operator.
Germany's media watchdog KEK rejected on Tuesday plans by Springer to buy for 2.5 billion euros (three billion dollars) ProSiebenSat1 TV Media AG from a group of investors led by U.S. billionaire Haim Saban.
KEK rejected the move on the grounds that the proposed merged media company would wield too much power over public opinion in Europe's biggest economy.
Now, in a move ahead of next week's decision by Germany's cartel authorities on the takeover bid, Springer has offered to carve up the ProSiebenSat1 TV group and to sell off the ProSieben channel.
Either way, the ruling by Germany's media regulators appeared to represent a major blow to Springer's long-held ambitions to forge a new European media conglomerate spanning newpapers, magazines and TV.
"We are sticking to the plans so long as we see a chance to realise them," said Springer spokeswoman Edda Fels Wednesday.
Germany's cartel office is due to rule on the takeover on January 20.
But the cartel office has also expressed reservations about the takeover, calling on Springer to sell either its flagship newspaper Bild, which is Europe's biggest daily, or TV interests operated by ProSiebenSat1.
In the wake of the KEK ruling, Springer's chief executive Mathias Doepfner indicated that the media group would invest more strongly outside of Germany if regulatory authorities continued to block its planned ProSiebenSat1 takeover.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
