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MediaForEurope ‘will look at’ Channel 4 when it goes up for sale

Numerous companies are circling the broadcaster ahead of privatisation

The chief financial officer of European broadcaster MediaForEurope has said the company will take a look at Channel 4 when the UK government puts the broadcaster up for sale.

“When it is put on the block, we will surely look at it,” Reuters reports Marco Giordani as saying.

MediaForEurope is Italy’s largest private broadcaster and is owned by former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi and his family.

Mediaset set up the new pan-European media company MediaForEurope in 2019, with the company operating out of the Netherlands.

The UK government announced in April that it intended to privatise Channel 4, and is hoping to generate more than £1 billion through the sale of the public-service broadcaster.

The necessary legislation for the sale has yet to be passed, and bidding on the broadcaster has yet to begin.

Much of the UK’s TV industry has expressed anger and disappointment at the government’s plans.

Should MediaForEurope go ahead with a bid it is likely to face competition from other interested companies, which reportedly includes a consortium featuring actor Idris Elba, Warner Bros Discovery, ITV, Paramount, Comcast, French media company Vivendi, and even Netflix and Amazon.