| Following the announcement of the deal on 26 June 2007 and the unconditional regulatory approval by the Dutch competition authority in August, the final details had to be negotiated between RTL Group and Talpa Media. Those negotiations were successfully concluded on Friday, 28 September 2007.
 The leading Dutch radio station Radio 538 will now be integrated into RTL Nederland, which has also acquired certain TV assets from Talpa Media. The RTL 4 programme schedule, for example, has been boosted with football rights including the Dutch Football Premiere League and successful dramas also acquired as part of the deal. In return, Talpa Media now holds a 26.3 per cent stake in RTL Nederland.
 On 18 August 2007, RTL Nederland launched a fourth Free-TV channel, RTL 8, to strengthen and complement the existing family of channels (RTL 4, 5 and 7). RTL 8 has a distinctly female touch and its programme mix includes talk shows, soaps and docu-soaps, reality shows, casting shows and films. The “new” RTL family of channels in the Netherlands achieved a market share of 31.6 per cent among 20 to 49-year-olds in September, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous month.
Following the deal, RTL Group now owns interests in 39 television channels and 30 radio stations in ten countries. |
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