🔴 HUMINT Situation Room — September 5, 2025

Birth of a European Media Bloc

On September 4, MFE-MediaForEurope (Berlusconi family) crossed the 75.61% threshold in ProSiebenSat.1.

This figure is more than symbolic: it grants MFE the qualified majority needed to impose a domination and profit transfer agreement (DPLTA), integrating all of ProSiebenSat.1’s results and enabling full operational control.

With nearly €6.8 billion in consolidated revenues, the group now stands as Europe’s largest free-to-air broadcaster.

The decisive step was made possible by the strategic sale of 15.68% by PPF Group, without which the takeover would have remained incomplete.

Markets responded instantly: MFE shares rose +4.1%.

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Invisible Dynamics

• Direct confrontation with streaming: Netflix, YouTube, and Disney+ now face a player able to counter them with a truly pan-European advertising network.

• Joyn, ProSieben’s 100%-owned German platform, emerges as a potential hub for a European AVOD/FAST ecosystem, linking to Infinity (Italy) and Mitele (Spain).

• Advertising synergies dominate the agenda: addressable TV, unified data, premium CPMs — a direct attempt to replicate the technological edge of global platforms.

• German regulators are watching closely. “Pluralism” will be the keyword of any decision, with editorial independence as a constant lever of pressure.

• Behind the curtain: the extension of ProSieben’s CFO mandate until 2029 signals an effort to preserve internal counterweights — a reminder that the game is not fully won.

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Watch Points

• Extraordinary General Meeting: likely adoption of the DPLTA, compensation for minority shareholders, potential legal disputes.

• Executive alignment: Italo-German governance remains under pressure.

• Competitive front line: RTL (Bertelsmann) and TF1 will be watching closely. A European domino effect could follow.

• Advertising cycle: any downturn would test the resilience of this pan-European ambition.

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HUMINT Decryption

This is not a mere increase in capital.

It is the crossing of an invisible threshold: where financial power becomes strategic power.

MFE has secured control, but the real challenge now lies elsewhere — in the speed of integration, in neutralizing resistance, and in proving that Europe can still build media blocs at scale.

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Conclusion

The takeover of ProSiebenSat.1 by MFE is not the end of a process.

It is the opening of a new playing field, where competition is no longer national but continental.

The key question is no longer “who owns what”, but rather: who will be first to cross the next threshold.

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