RTL Group

RTL Group is Europe's leading entertainment company, and is majority-owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. It has interests in 54 television and 29 radio stations in 10 countries. The Luxembourg-based media group operates TV channels and radio stations in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, and Asia as well as production companies throughout the world.

It is one of the world's leading producers of television content, such as game shows and soaps (particularly through its ownership of London-based FremantleMedia), including The X Factor, Pop Idol, Good Times, Bad Times, The Price Is Right, Family Feud, and The Bill.

RTL originally stood for Radio Television Lëtzebuerg (in Luxemburgish), Radio Télévision Luxembourg (in French) or Radio Television Luxemburg (in German).

Today's RTL Group began in 1924 with a single radio station operated from a private home in Luxembourg. In 1931 CLR or Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion, which operated Radio Luxembourg, was founded. CLR was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the European Broadcasting Union in 1950. RTL Group is still an EBU-member under a previous name: CLT Multi Media. In 1954 it was renamed CLT or Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion and started television broadcasts. In 1997 it merged with Hamburg-based UFA Film- und Fernseh-GmbH (successor to the pre-1945 UFA), a subsidiary of global media conglomerate Bertelsmann to create CLT-UFA. In 2000 it merged with Pearson TV and became RTL Group. As of January 2014, Bertelsmann owns a 75.1% stake in the publicly listed company.

One of the major reasons for RTL's early success, apart from the merits related to the programming content itself, was that Luxembourg allowed commercial radio and TV stations long before other European countries. This flexibility enabled RTL to transmit to other countries (such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands) in their own languages. Many British radio presenters began their careers on Radio Luxembourg before moving to the BBC and to commercial broadcasters in the UK. In the 1970s, Radio Luxembourg's English-language audiences declined as a result of new music stations in the UK, and the service ceased broadcasting in the early 1990s on the Astra 1A satellite, often referred to as the Astra Satellite, as SES only operated one satellite originally. Radio Luxembourg relaunched in November 2005 and is currently available online at www.radioluxembourg.co.uk and on Digital Radio Mondiale. A sister station, Atlantic 252 was a long-wave radio station jointly run by RTL Group and Irish broadcaster RTÉ. It ceased broadcasting live on December 20, 2001.

RTL is a member of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) consortium of broadcasting and Internet industry companies that is promoting and establishing an open European standard (called HbbTV) for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface. RTL Television (Germany) has been operating HbbTV services since 2010.

In August 2013, RTL announced a joint venture for the Asian market with CBS Corporation and the launch of two new TV channels. RTL CBS Entertainment will be the first channel, expected to launch in September. Another channel, RTL CBS Extreme is announced for early 2014. The joint venture operates under the newly founded RTL CBS Asia Entertainment Network.

In 2014, European broadcasting group RTL Group had taken control of StyleHaul, a YouTube fashion platform. RTL raised its stake in StyleHaul to 93.6 percent for $107 million.

Television stations

• Asia

RTL CBS Entertainment

RTL CBS Extreme

• Belgium

RTL TVI

Club RTL

Plug RTL

• Croatia

RTL Televizija

RTL 2

RTL plus

RTL Kockica

• France

M6

M6 Boutique & Co.

Paris Première

RTL9

Série Club

Téva

TF6

6ter

W9

M6 Music Hits

M6 Music Black

M6 Music Club

• Germany

RTL Television

VOX

RTL II

Super RTL

n-tv

Passion

RTL Crime

RTL Living

RTL Nitro

GEO Television

• Hungary

RTL Klub

RTL II

Cool TV

Film+

Film+ 2

RTL +

Sorozat+

Muzsika TV

• Luxembourg

RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg

Den 2. RTL

• Netherlands (RTL Nederland, formerly known as Holland Media Groep or HMG and until 1995 RTL 4 SA)

RTL 4 (started in 1989 as RTL Veronique, renamed in 1990 as RTL 4)

RTL 5

RTL 7 (formerly known as Yorin)

RTL 8 (formerly known as Talpa, Tien)

RTL Lounge

RTL Crime

RTL Telekids

RTL 24 (TV on your mobile)

• Spain

Grupo Antena 3

Former stations

• RTL 7, a Polish-language satellite television channel was sold in December 2001 to TVN owners ITI and became TVN 7.
• Media Capital, a Portuguese media group was sold to Prisa on 6 February 2007. Subsequently, RTL's 33% share in TVI was transferred to Prisa.
• Five (now re-branded Channel 5), a UK TV channel was sold to Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell on 23 July 2010.
• Alpha TV, a Greek channel with panhellenic transmission. The 66.6% of shares was sold from Dimitris Kontominas to RTL Group. The shares was return from RTL Group to Dimitris Kontominas in 5 January 2012.

Radio stations

Station followed by RTL's present share amount percentage.

France

RTL (100%)

RTL2 (100%)

Fun Radio (100%)

Germany

104.6 RTL (100%)

RTL Radio die besten Hits aller Zeiten (100%)

The Wave (German radio)^(de) (100%)

Antenne Bayern (16%)

Radio Hamburg (29.17%)

Radio NRW (16.96%)

Radio 21 (17.3%)

Big FM (7.74%)

Radio Regenbogen (15.75%)

Radio Dresden (31.9%)

Radio Leipzig (31.9%)

Radio Chemnitz (31.9%)

Radio Lausitz (31.9%)

Radio Zwickau (31.9%)

Vogtland Radio (31.9%)

Hit radio RTL (30.5%)

Antenne Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (19.7%)

Radio Brocken (53.5%)

89.0 RTL (53.5%)

Antenne Thüringen (15%)

Radio Ton (2%)

BB Radio (unknown)

105'5 Spreeradio (33.8%)

Radio Top 40 (unknown)

Oldie 95 (4.78%)

Rock Antenne (16%)

Luxembourg

RTL Radio Letzebuerg (100%)

RTL Radio die besten Hits Aller Zeiten UKW 93,3 und 97,0 (100%)

Eldoradio (74,8%)

Netherlands

RTL Lounge Radio

Belgium

Bel RTL (44,2%) (but operational control)

Radio Contact (Belgium) (44,2%) (but operational control)

Mint (44,2%) (but operational control)

Spain

Onda Cero (18.6%)

Europa FM (18.6%)

Former stations

• Rádio Comercial, Cidade FM, Best Rock FM and Rádio Clube and other stations in Portugal, were transferred to Prisa when RTL sold its 33% share in Media Capital group in February 2007. End of 2011, Radio 538, Radio 10 Gold, Slam!FM and Juize were sold to Talpa Holding NV as part of an exchange of shares in RTL Nederland.
• Radio Luxembourg, London, United Kingdom, English services.
• Alpha 98.9, a Greek radio station. The 66.6% of shares was sold from Dimitris Kontominas to RTL Group. The shares was return from RTL Group to Dimitris Kontominas in 5 January 2012.

Production

• FremantleMedia

Technical Services

• Broadcasting Center Europe

Located in Luxembourg, Broadcasting Center Europe is a European company providing technical services in the fields of TV, Radio, Telecommunications and IT. BCE was founded in January 2000 as a result of the merger of several technical entities of the RTL Group.

Others

• European News Exchange

Located in Luxembourg, ENEX (or European News Exchange) is an association of leading commercial TV broadcasters around the world which share their news content and production resources.

References

1. ^ Rtlgroup :: About Us :: At A Glance
2. ^ Robert Briel. German RTL to support HbbTV. Broadband TV News August 27, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2009
3. ^ Roxborough, Scott (13 August 2013). "CBS, Europe's RTL Group Partner on Asian TV Channels". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 13 August 2013. 
4. ^ "RTL takes control of YouTube fashion platform". Investing.com. 4 November 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2014. 
5. ^ "RTL Group sells UK broadcaster Five" (Press release). RTL Group. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 24 July 2010. 

External links

• RTL Group
• Official history
• Bertelsmann site
• Careers RTL