On Friday, 24 April, between noon and 20:00, RTL Group will be pedalling all out for the Télévie 2009 charity appeal

Luxembourg, 23 April 2009 – This year RTL Group will be hosting its fifth consecutive annual Télévie Challenge at the Group’s Corporate Centre in Luxembourg-Kirchberg. Between noon and 20:00 on Friday 24 April, staff from the Corporate Centre and some celebrity guests will be pedalling as hard as they can on the training bikes in the company’s fitness centre.

For each kilometre completed on these fitness bikes, the company will pay EUR 4.50 towards Télévie. Last year, 400 highly motivated staff and friends of Télévie clocked up a grand total of 9,644 km, which converted into EUR 43,398. RTL Group then generously rounded up that figure to EUR 50,000.

Elmar Heggen, Chief Financial Officer and Head of the Corporate Centre of RTL Group, said: “Today’s worrying economic environment has in no way diminished RTL Group’s enthusiasm for the Télévie appeal. The company took a strong social stand by pledging to fight a grand and noble cause: combating cancer and helping those suffering from the disease not to fall into despair. During the 21 years of Télévie’s existence, scientific research has achieved several major breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer. This single fact undoubtedly provides the best possible justification for RTL Group’s commitment. And by bravely and tenaciously cycling for Télévie on Friday 24 April, RTL Group employees will be helping life to triumph.”

Marc Diederich from the Cancer Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Biology (LBMCC) at Kirchberg Hospital added: “There is nothing worse for a researcher than having ideas, but no funding to try them out. Since 2002, thanks to Télévie, the team at Kirchberg Hospital will have published more than 35 pieces of research in the international scientific literature. In other words, the support provided by Télévie goes a long way towards explaining how headway has been made in Luxembourg in research into cancer and forms of leukaemia. So many thanks to RTL Group for funding the Télévie appeal and, through it, making such a major contribution towards cancer research.”

Télévie in a few figures: The chain of solidarity that characterises Télévie was put in place by RTL-TVI in Belgium in 1989 and by RTL Lëtzebuerg in 2001. Since 1989, tens of thousands of people, including TV presenters, journalists, artists, researchers and anonymous volunteers, have all played their part to raise money for research into cancer, and leukaemia in particular. The EUR 92,550,817 amassed since the launch of Télévie has enabled no fewer than 1,273 grants to be awarded to researchers from the National Scientific Research Fund (FRS-FNRS). All that money is gone into basic and clinical research.

The website of RTL Group’s Télévie Challenge is http://televiechallenge.rtlgroup.com/

The Télévie website in Luxembourg is http://televie.rtl.lu/cms/televie/

For further enquiries please contact:
Oliver Herrgesell
Corporate Communications
Tel: +352 – 2486 – 5200
oliver.herrgesell@rtlgroup.com

About RTL Group
RTL Group is the leading European entertainment network, with interests in 45 television channels and 32 radio stations in 11 countries and content production throughout the world. The television portfolio of Europe’s largest broadcaster includes RTL Television in Germany, M6 in France, Five in the UK, the RTL channels in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Croatia and Hungary, Alpha TV in Greece, Ren TV in Russia and Antena 3 in Spain. RTL Group’s flagship radio station is RTL in France, and it also owns or has interests in other stations in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Luxembourg. RTL Group's content production arm, FremantleMedia, is one of the largest international producers outside the US. Each year, it produces 10,000 hours of programming across 57 countries.