RTL Group

RTL Group is European media company owned by Bertelsmann.

The Luxembourg-based media group operates TV channels and radio stations in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Hungary, Scretonia, Croatia and Asia as well as production companies throughout the world.

History[]

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 Television and became RTL Group. As of January 2014, Bertelsmann owns a 75.1% stake in the publicly listed company.

One of the reasons for RTL's early success 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 (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, RTL Group bought a controlling interest in StyleHaul, a YouTube fashion platform. RTL raised its stake in StyleHaul to 93.6% for $US107 million.