Total split within the hurry group for the new television license. The Board of Directors of the Editor Company of El País and the SER chain has lived on Tuesday tension moments between supporters and detractors of carrying out a new channel. The president of the Prisa Group and Major Shareholder with 29.9% of the company, Joseph Oughourlian, has managed defeated.
Internal sources of the company ensure that the shareholders representing Varela Entrecanal and Contreras intend to move forward with the project of the new television channel, despite the obstacle that have been found in the Board of Directors of Hurry. In this sense, the same sources assure that this group of shareholders would be studying whether to opt for the new television without having the Group Hurd for what would be looking for new investors to support the project.
Subsequently, the Prisa Group has sent a statement to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) where it assured that “the Board of Directors has decided that Prisa does not opt for the new television license, focusing all its efforts on the business lines that currently develops average, both in the press and on radio, which have the full support of their readers and listeners, as the magnificent results obtained, thus discarding the return to the market television ”.
The rejection of the new television channel within the Council of the Media and Education Group has coincided with the presentation of results. Hurry lost 11.6 million euros in 2024, although the company highlights that the gross exploitation result (Ebitda) was 185.1 million, which represents 2.3% more, and 13% more constant.
The decision not to opt for a new television channel collides with the statements of Carlos Núñez, executive president of Middle Middle, who assured In an interview at El País newspaper that “the objective is to achieve a television license that gives us access to a pool of advertising income to which we now do not have access, and open a new content distribution window in an environment in which we are currently not present. That would allow us to further accelerate our digital audiovisual presence, so we could serve those new content in all our channels. ”
Although Núñez assured in the newspaper of his group that “with our audiovisual development, the natural is to launch a television”, the truth is that the maximum shareholder has never seen with good eyes an operation that could put in greater problems the finances hurry . The net debt, as of December 2024, amounts to 750 million euros compared to 832 million euros in December 2023. In fact, debt reduction is one of Oughourlian’s main objectives, which the project of a new Channel could throw by land.
Strengthening this position, the company ensures in its statement to the CNMV that “the Board of Directors has also agreed that the group continues focused on reducing the debt and strengthening its liquidity position, in line with the efforts made in recent years, thanks to which the debt ratio on EBITDA is currently at the lowest level since 2005 ”.
The Government already announced in the middle of last year that it was intended to modify the National Technical Plan of Digital Terrestrial Television, dating from 2019. Then the explanations that occurred was that the change was due to technical reasons and that the implementation of technology known as ultra high definition (UHD) allowed the entrance of a new channel to the radio space.
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