The Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK, www.uokik.gov.pl) approved the merger of private media platforms n (www.n.pl) and Cyfra+ (www.cyfraplus.pl) into one platform with the working name NC+ which will reach 2.5 million subscribers.

The UOKiK spent seven months investigating whether this merger would create an unfair monopoly position of the market, finally granting its approval.

"While the transaction will surely influence the market of paid television and television advertising, we didn't find any negative influence that it would have on competition," Małgorzata Krasnodębska-Tomkiel, the Chief of UOKiK, said in an official statement.

The contract signed by TVN Group (www.investor.tvn.pl) and Canal+ Group (www.canalplusgroupe.com) allocates 51% of the shares in the joint venture to Canal+ Group and 32% to TVN Group. The rest of the shares will be the property of Liberty Global (www.lgi.com) and UPC Polska (www.upc.pl). The President of the company will be Markus Tellenbach, the current President of TVN Group, and his deputy will be Beata Mońka, the President of Canal+ Cyfrowy.

The second part of the transaction allows Canal+ to buy 40% of the shares in N-Vision (www.nvision.pl), the mother company of TVN holding 51% of its shares. As a result, three representatives of Canal+ will be included in the 11-member TVN Board of Supervisors.