RTL Group

From Free net encyclopedia

RTL Group is Europe's largest TV, radio and production company. It has 26 television and 24 radio stations in 9 countries. This Luxembourg-based media group operates TV channels and radio stations in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, Luxembourg, Spain, Hungary, Portugal and Croatia, and production companies in the United States.

It is one of the world's leading producers of television content such as game shows and soaps, including Pop Idol, Good Times, Bad Times, The Price Is Right, Family Feud, The Bill, and, under licence from Mark Burnett Productions, the producer of non-US versions, and distributor of all versions internationally, of The Apprentice.

The now-defunct Atlantic 252 was a long-wave radio station jointly run by RTL and Irish broadcaster RTE.

RTL originally stood for Radio Télévision Luxembourg (in French) or Radio Télé Luxemburg (in German).

The RTL Group started in 1931 as CLR or Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion which operated Radio Luxembourg. In 1954 it renamed itself into CLT or Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion and started television broadcasts. In 1997 it merged with Hamburg-based UFA Film- und Fernseh-GmbH (not to be confused with pre 1945 UFA) to create CLT-UFA. In 2000 it merged with Pearson TV and became RTL Group, which also allowed it to enter the prestigious American broadcast market. It is currently (October 2005) 90.4% owned by Bertelsmann.

Among the reasons of RTL Group's early success, apart for merits related to the content itself, one can cite the fact that Luxembourg allowed privately owned radio and TV stations long before other European countries did, which it used to transmit to other countries (such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands) in their own languages. Many British radio disc jockeys began their careers on Radio Luxembourg before moving to BBC Radio 1 and commercial stations in the UK. However, Radio Luxembourg's audiences declined as a result of these new stations, and it ceased broadcasting in the early 1990s.

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