Bundeskartellamt takes critical view of Super RTL and Nickelodeon merger plans – RTL withdraws notification

After the Bundeskartellamt had informed RTL and Paramount of its intention to prohibit the proposed merger of Super RTL and Nickelodeon, the parties withdrew their notification.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The merger plans notified by RTL and Paramount would have concerned video advertising aimed at children between the ages of three and 13 years. Our investigations have shown that the children’s advertising market has such distinctive characteristics that it had to be defined as a separate market. There are only a very limited number of companies offering advertising space specifically targeted at children, most notably RTL with its children’s TV programme. The public broadcaster KiKA does not show any advertising. Although we are seeing a strong shift away from linear television, especially also among children, streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon currently do not play a role in the children’s advertising market. The same goes for social media services such as TikTok or Snapchat, which are designed and work in a different way and which, already as a result of their age restrictions, are not aimed at children and therefore do not offer advertising space specifically targeted at children.”

RTL, which is part of the Bertelsmann group, is active in the children’s sector with the Super RTL and TOGGO (plus) brands, under which it provides various offerings for children, mainly on linear television, but also on RTL+.

Paramount is active in the children’s sector in Germany both in the “traditional” way with the Nickelodeon TV programme and increasingly also online with its Paramount+ offering and children’s channels on its FAST platform Pluto TV.

For the Bundeskartellamt’s assessment under merger control, the aspect of advertising on these offerings was particularly important. The information provided by essentially all the major advertisers in the children’s sector and the parties’ (potential) competitors in both the TV sector and the online sector has shown that advertisers have a specific demand for video advertising space to specifically and safely reach children between the ages of three and 13 years. In addition to the relevant offerings provided by RTL and Paramount, Disney in particular also provides such offerings in the television sector. In the online sector, it is mainly Alphabet/Google with YouTube Kids that also provides such offerings. Super RTL is by far the leading provider, followed by Disney, which is itself well ahead of Nickelodeon. Even if YouTube Kids is included in the assessment due to changing viewing habits, Super RTL remains the clearly dominant offering, which would benefit noticeably from the addition of Nickelodeon.

As RTL and Paramount’s merger plans also involved aspects of media law, the Bundeskartellamt also asked the Commission on Concentration in the Media (KEK) for its opinion, as provided for by law in such cases. The KEK’s deliberations in this regard were comparable to those of the Bundeskartellamt, and it also found that RTL had a strong position in the children’s sector. As the KEK focuses on viewers and there are other (strong) alternatives for children in this regard, such as KiKA, it did not raise any additional concerns regarding the merger plans due to a lack of alternatives in terms of media plurality.

The last time the Bundeskartellamt dealt with the children’s TV sector was in 2021. At the time, it did not object to RTL taking full ownership of Super RTL, which had previously been operated as a joint venture with Disney (see press release of 11 June 2021 and case summary of 7 March 2022). As a result, Super RTL was completely taken over by RTL, but at the same time Disney regained greater freedom to compete.