Estonia, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Mergers and take-overs

Eesti Meedia CEO Sven Nuutmann told BNS that there have also been rumors about MTG planning to sell its Baltic operations and Eesti Meedia would definitely be interested in that if that were to come true.

According to Nuutmann the media group would be especially interested in MTG's Latvian TV channels. MTG owns all Latvian commercial TV channels and setting up a new channel in Latvia would probably not be profitable, he added.

According to Nuutmann the situation in Lithuania is better than in Latvia, but there are still two very strong competitors and Eesti Meedia is not interested in competing with them.

Commenting on the planned acquisition of ''Seitse'' music channel, Nuutman said that the "aim of the transaction is to strengthen the selection of television channels and to offer a selection also to the younger audience. We have set a clear goal to increase the number of our niche channels". According to Nuutmann, ''Seitse'' will definitely remain a music channel.

The group is also not ruling out creating a Russian-language channel. At the same time there are no concrete plans at the moment, Nuutmann said.

Eesti Meedia is owned by pharmaceuticals businessman Margus Linnamae through investment company Up Invest. He is also the new owner of news agency Baltic News Service (BNS) and LETA.