Outside, the construction machines are noisy. Here in Unterföhring on the outskirts of Munich, the new headquarters of Pro Sieben Sat 1 is being built, the old houses have long been demolished, the shell is already in place, although the work is behind schedule due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the employees of the television company will soon be moving in here.
Inside is the new CEO Bert Habets, 52, in a television studio where the afternoon Pro-Sieben show “Taff” is usually recorded. The Dutchman, whose family still lives near Amsterdam, has been head of Pro Sieben Sat 1 for five months, the ailing media company with the unloved major shareholder – with almost 30 percent, the media company Media for Europe (MFE) is owned by the controversial Italian right-wing politician Silvio Berlusconi involved. In November 2022, Habets surprisingly replaced Rainer Beaujean at the top of the company. Not much has happened since then.
Now jobs are to be cut, how many is still open
So now Habets wants to present the new strategy for Pro Sieben Sat 1, it’s his first big appearance, he reads his speech from the screen in front of the cameras without any major emotions. “This isn’t a revolution,” he says at the end, “but an evolution.” And indeed: Those who expected fundamentally new impulses were disappointed. Habets didn’t have much to show for this Tuesday. In the future, the focus will be on television and entertainment and the aim is to increase sales by up to five percent. The aim is to strengthen the Joyn streaming service and expand the digital business, with a particular focus on local content. Pro Sieben Sat 1 had already tried all of this in previous years.
Bert Habets worked for RTL for a long time, now he is the head of Pro Sieben Sat 1.
(Photo: Seven.One/Benedikt Müller)
Carefully packaged, Habets also has bad news. The new boss announces that he will pay very strict attention to costs this year. This also includes staff reductions. How many jobs will be cut is still open. Negotiations are already being made with employee representatives. Habets says: “We probably need a few more weeks.” At the end of 2021, the company had a total of 7,900 employees. the announcement is likely to cause unrest among the workforce.
At the same time – which in turn is bad news for shareholders – Habtes shelved the planned IPO of the online dating business. Pro Sieben Sat 1, together with the financial investor General Atlantic, owns the Parship-Meet Group, one of the three major dating sites on the Internet. In the meantime, two-thirds of sales are made outside of the German-speaking area, so the synergies with the 15 television stations are small. One wants to part with the business, but an IPO, which should bring a lot of money into the tight coffers, is “not realistic in view of the current situation on the capital market,” says Habets. Now the first thing to do is to save and jobs to be cut.
The free TV business is no longer the same as it used to be
The business with free-to-air television is no longer doing as well as it used to, advertising revenue is declining, younger viewers in particular (but meanwhile also more and more older ones) are turning away and going to streaming services. Not only does Pro Sieben Sat 1 feel this, but also the major competitor RTL and the public broadcasters. Habets therefore wants to rely more on the streaming platform Joyn, which now fully belongs to the group after separating from partner Discovery. More content is to be produced for Joyn. Habets also calls for more cooperation between the broadcasters and announced talks. But both ARD/ZDF and RTL are pursuing their own streaming plans. Such negotiations had already failed in the past. It is considered unlikely that RTL will switch to Joyn in the foreseeable future.
With the “TV total Wok WM” Pro 7 hopes for viewers.
(Photo: Thomas Banneyer/dpa)
Thomas Rabe, who runs both RTL and the parent company Bertelsmann, had always shown interest in Pro Sieben Sat 1 as a whole. That is unrealistic, said Habets now. Rabe’s strategy of creating national champions in the television business failed, for example in France or the Netherlands. That is a clear signal that this is not possible in Germany either. But Habets offered other forms of cooperation. Which, he left open.
The new boss struck a new chord with the hitherto unloved major shareholder. Habet’s predecessor brusquely rejected all requests by Media for Europe (formerly Mediaset). The newcomer now said there was a more constructive dialogue than in the past, that was “very logical” and that it sounded like rapprochement. The Italians, who are now apparently also aiming for a place on the supervisory board, hold a little less than 30 percent of the shares in Pro Sieben Sat 1 and have repeatedly made it clear that they would like to include the Germans in a pan-European television company. There is also speculation that the stake could be increased, also in view of the low price of the Pro-Sieben-Sat 1 share. But there could be resistance to an even larger entry by Berlusconi at the German television company, from media regulators or politicians. The former Italian Prime Minister attracted attention because of his closeness to Russian President Putin. Recently, the Czech billionaire Renata Kellnerova also announced her entry into Pro Sieben Sat 1, she controls about nine percent.
Everyone still has to wait for the figures from Pro Sieben Sat 1. The publication of the balance sheet will not take place for four to six weeks, said Habets. The reason for this are regulatory questions from the financial supervisory authority Bafin on the business of the voucher subsidiary Jochen Schweizer Mydays. CFO Ralf Peter Gierig said they were negotiating with the German Stock Exchange so that Pro Sieben Sat 1 would not be excluded from the MDax due to the lack of a certified balance sheet.
