The head of Pro Sieben Sat.1 has to go.

He will be replaced by someone who was previously the head of the RTL Group: Rainer Beaujean out, Bert Habets in.

So nothing stands in the way of the merger of the two large German private broadcasting groups, which the Bertelsmann and RTL Group boss Thomas Rabe had already mentioned in an interview with the FAS in February, right?

That would be a phalanx: Pro Sieben, Sat.1, Kabel eins, Sixx, Pro Sieben Maxx, Sat.1 Gold, Kabel eins Doku, RTL, RTL zwei, Super RTL, RTL Nitro, RTL Plus, n-tv and Vox.

If we add the streaming platforms Joyn and RTL+, this would result in a challenger “Made in Germany” that would stand up to giants like Amazon, Netflix, Apple or Disney.

But nothing will come of it as long as the Federal Cartel Office only looks at the “national” market and through the telescope when it comes to such plans: From this perspective, the internationally active mega-corporations suddenly appear small, the local companies appear huge, RTL and Pro Sieben Sat.1 would from duopoly to monopoly.

The previous Pro-Sieben-Sat.1 boss Beaujean waved it off as soon as the topic came up.

His successor would have to work wonders if he wanted to change anything here.

"By mutual agreement"

And the two private broadcaster groups do not appear prepared anyway.

Pro Sieben Sat.1 has long been on the decline in linear television, the Joyn platform is doing mediocre, the share price has plummeted, and among the shareholders, Berlusconi's "Media for Europe" group (formerly Mediaset) is preparing to incorporate the group .

And there goes CEO Beaujean, who only started as such at Pro Sieben Sat.1 in January of this year, as the saying goes, “by mutual agreement”.

At RTL, on the other hand, Bertelsmann boss Rabe has caused veritable management chaos in the course of the digital transformation that all media houses have to cope with.

The magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr was merged with RTL, then there were two bosses for RTL's new, large magazine and broadcasting and platform business in Germany.

One of the two - Stephan Schäfer, who had previously held the scepter at Gruner + Jahr - only got the papers six weeks ago.

Bertelsmann RTL Babo Rabe has been doing his job ever since.

He has just announced that Gruner + Jahr's magazines will be subjected to a "portfolio review".

That means as much as: what suits RTL stays, everything else is thrown out.

Shall we imagine that the one shop where there is a bang goes together with the other where there is a bang?