The Argentinean media regulator AFSCA has approved Grupo Clarin’s plan to voluntarily dismantle itself into six separate entities, which it proposed last November.
Last year the media conglomerate, which owns cableco Cablevision and ISP…
The Argentinean media regulator AFSCA has approved Grupo Clarin’s plan to voluntarily dismantle itself into six separate entities, which it proposed last November.
Last year the media conglomerate, which owns cableco Cablevision and ISP Fibertel, lost a four-year legal battle against an anti-media monopoly law introduced by president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, passed in 2009.
Alongside Cablevision, the country’s biggest cableco, Clarin owns Argentina’s most read newspaper, the two biggest TV channels and popular radio stations.
The bulk of Cablevision and Fibertel’s operations will be put into one of the six planned units.
The entity will also hold 24 cable channel licences – the maximum the new law allows.
Existing minority investor Fintech Advisory – which bought a controlling stake in Telecom Argentina last November – will hold 40% of this unit.
Fintech – the vehicle of Mexican investor David Martinez – owns a significant amount of Argentina’s sovereign debt and has a stake in local cableco Cablevision.
The head of the AFSCA, Martin Sabbatella, said that Clarin had 30 days to submit the details of how it was dividing its licenses between the six units. Clarin now has six months to split its assets between new units.
Clarin decided to volunteer to break itself up after a decision from Argentina’s supreme court that new broadcast legislation – which includes break-up powers – was constitutional.
Clarin’s pre-emptive move was a surprise in Argentina. The group and the Kirchner-led government had been in a bitter feud, reportedly since Clarin’s news outlets criticised the way her government dealt with tax protests by farmers in 2008.
Kirchner has faced criticism over her administration’s new laws, which some have seen as an attempt to interfere with an adversary. However, the government says it is against concentrated ownership of media assets and argues that it is promoting plurality.
In a statement, AFSCA head Sabbatella said that he was pleased that “all media groups, even the most powerful and damaging to democracy, have had to surrender to the rule of law”.
In a statement of their own, Clarin said that the comments from AFSCA confirmed its lack of impartiaility, “and confirms that the official intent with media law has been the dismantling of the few remaining independent voices in the audiovisual world”.
