(Fonte: europeanjournalists.org) Italian media group MediaForEurope (MFE) is set to takeover German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 after the Czech major shareholder PPF announced its withdrawal, on 27 August 2025. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins its German affiliate dju in ver.di in raising concerns about the effects on media pluralism in Europe.
With this acquisition, Pier Silvio Berlusconi – head of MFE and son of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – seeks to create a pan-European media group with ProSiebenSat.1 and MFE’s channels in Italy and Spain.
“International investors are primarily concerned with financial interests,” emphasises dju co-chair Lars Hansen. There is a risk that a company will be focused solely on profit at the expense of employees and program diversity. Moreover, there is a fear that MFE will try harder than major German publishers to disseminate the political agendas of international financial investors through the media.”
Unlike domestic shareholders, foreign investors cannot be assumed to have an interest in promoting the media’s long-term journalistic development, according to Hansen.
EFJ President Maja Sever added: “The strategy of MFE’s majority acquisition of P7S1 is part of a broader development. Media diversity in many European countries is declining, and ownership structures are becoming increasingly concentrated – often in favour of political networks. We cannot simply allow this development to continue. Media freedom thrives on independence.”
Both organisations point to the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which came into force in August. It obliges member states, among other things, to make ownership structures transparent and to examine potential impacts on pluralism and editorial freedom.
dju and EFJ call on the responsible media regulatory authorities to immediately apply these requirements to the event of an impending takeover of ProSieben-Sat.1 by MFE and to present an independent assessment of the consequences for employees, media diversity, and editorial independence.