(Continued From Page 16) 18 Failed attempts to create a pan-European TV landscape (then abbreviated as PETV) began in earnest in 1983 with Sky Channel, and continued throughout the ’80s, culminating in 1987 with MTV Europe, considered the PETV par excellence as it used English as the lingua franca. Paramount Skydance, MTV’s owner, plans to shut down MTV in Europe at the end of 2025. By the end of 1997 German Bertelsmann media group CLT-UFA was managing 22 TV channels in nine European countries. Today, RTL mainly operates M6 TV network in France, RTL TV in Germany, RTL TV in Hungary, and Fremantle, a production and distribution company in the U.K. In the 1990s various media buying agencies also began showing an interest in PETV, including the French advertising agency Carat (now part of Japan’s Dentsu), which had a full staff in its London office dedicated to planning and buying pan-European television. France made another attempt to develop a pan-European network in 2006 with the short-lived broadband and satellite service Orange TV (France Telecom), serving territories covered by the Telco. More recently, it appears that the Canal Plus acquisition of SPI (which, among other TV assets, has 15 cable/IPTV channels in various European territories) could put the French media group in competition with MFE, but the whole Canal Plus project seems mired in complexity, bureaucracy, and what appears to be an unclear vision. Created in 1984 as an encrypted premium subscription terrestrial TV service, Canal Plus reportedly expanded with some of the terrestrial TV frequencies relinquished by Berlusconi’s La Cinq. Given the complexity of the operation, VideoAge can only assume that MFE should opt for a simple structure with a strong worldwide division to operate properly. The structure would include: MFE Studios (for productions and co-productions), MFE International (for international content transmissions — cable, satellite and IPTV), and MFE Global Sales, in addition to a streaming division and a terrestrial TV broadcast division (in the affiliate style of the U.S. TV networks). (By Dom Serafini) Pier Silvio Berlusconi with VideoAge’s Dom Serafini in 2009 VIDEOAGE November 2025 MFE Vision For Your Consideration!
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