The takeover of Sky Deutschland by the RTL Group has been completed: the Sky stores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have officially belonged to RTL since June 1, 2026. We summarize the most important details.
Takeover officially completed
The transaction was announced in June 2025 and was finally approved unconditionally by the European Commission in April 2026. With the completion, RTL unites several well-known media brands in German-speaking countries.
According to RTL, the joint company reaches around 12.3 million paying subscribers. In the future, the offering will include the streaming services RTL+ and WOW, Sky’s pay TV platform and RTL’s free-to-air TV channels. Viewers should benefit from a broader content portfolio.
The merger is expected to create annual synergies of around 250 million euros within three years. According to RTL, these are mainly achieved through cost savings. At the same time, the takeover is intended to strengthen the competitiveness of European media companies compared to international VoD services.
The cash payment to Comcast at the completion of the transaction amounted to 68 million euros. The originally communicated purchase price of 150 million euros was reduced through contractually agreed adjustments. There is also a variable earn-out component of up to 377 million euros, which is linked to the development of RTL shares and for which RTL has already bought back its own shares.
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© RTL / Sky Germany