MAY 10, 2002

Premiere TV boss hopeful

GEORG KOFLER, the boss of German payTV channel Premiere is hopeful that investment can be found to keep the channel afloat. Premiere has money to survive for only a month but Kofler hopes that new backers for the business can be found now that Kirch PayTV has collapsed. Premiere is important to Formula 1 as it supplies a big chunk of money for the F1 circus.

Our sources in the F1 paddock say that revenues from TV are down this year by 30% because of the collapse of Kirch, the South American channel PSN and some of the regular free-to-air broadcasters.

According to rumors in Germany Rupert Murdoch, John Malone and Bertelsmann are all interested in saving Premiere, which shows the pay-per-view Formula 1 coverage in Germany. Murdoch's BSkyB already owns a 22 percent stake in KirchPayTV.