GIGA Digital Television
The GIGA Digital Television GmbH was a German media company, which is based in Cologne had. It operated the TV channel GIGA and the associated Internet portal giga.de . The transmitter GIGA 2 was also operated from June 6, 2006 to November 15, 2007 . In January 2008 Premiere AG took over ownership of the company, but discontinued it completely at the beginning of 2009. Previously, several financial investors were the main shareholders.
In February 2009 the discontinuation of the television channel GIGA was announced, all employees of GIGA Digital Television received their termination.
Since April 1, 2009, the television station GIGA has ceased operations.
In March 2011, the headquarters of GIGA Digital Television were relocated to Unterföhring, where Sky (formerly Premiere AG ) also has its headquarters.
Shortly thereafter, in August, a liquidator was appointed to liquidate the GmbH, which then happened on December 3, 2013, which means that Giga Digital Television has now expired.
Company history
The station GIGA was founded in 1998 as a project of the DFA , which had previously acquired the main shares in the station NBC Europe . The DFA founder and then managing director Helmut Keizer is considered to be the originator of the idea .
Due to the financial problems of the DFA, NBC Universal bought back their stake in 2004. GIGA was moved from analog reception to Astra digital to make room for the new TV station Das Vierte . NBC Universal lost interest in a very short time and in November 2005 already gave two thirds of the company shares to Cuneo AG and Turtle Entertainment . One month later, NBC Universal reduced its stake in GIGA Digital Television GmbH to 12.8%. Turtle Entertainment and Cuneo AG were now the largest shareholders.
Under the leadership of Turtle Entertainment and with the help of an injection of two million euros from Wellington Partners, the construction of the IPTV channel GIGA 2 began. In addition, the company location was relocated from Düsseldorf to Cologne and the GIGA formats GIGA (green) and GIGA real were discontinued.
On September 7, 2007, the discontinuation of GIGA 2 for November 15 was announced. Associated with this was a strong reduction in the shares in GIGA Digital Television on the part of Turtle Entertainment. A little later, Jens Hilgers resigned as managing director of GIGA.
In December 2007 reports surfaced that the pay TV group Premiere was interested in GIGA Digital Television. These were confirmed on January 4, 2008, when it was announced that Premiere AG would take over 100% of GIGA Digital Television GmbH . The Bundeskartellamt had previously granted a takeover application.
After the takeover, it was initially said that everything should stay the same and that the GIGA station should remain free to receive. On February 13, 2009, however, it was announced that GIGA will cease broadcasting at the end of March 2009; the Internet portal is to be taken over by a partner, or at least maintained until May 2009. In addition to the collapse of the advertising market as a result of the financial crisis , the reason given for this was that Premiere wanted to concentrate more on its core business, the pay-TV stations.
On April 19, 2009, however, it became known that the website giga.de would be taken over and continued by IGN , the online video game portal of the News Corporation . Resumption of television broadcasting was ruled out, but the three remaining employees report online in a daily video on news on the GIGA website and from the field of video games.
The company closed the 2008 financial year with a loss (loss carryforward taken into account) of approx. 68 million euros.
Company activities
GIGA
GIGA Digital Television produced all formats for GIGA. The programs were recorded in their studios in Cologne; the last day of production was February 12, 2009.
GIGA 2
The GIGA 2 program was produced by the “Head Office Austria” of GIGA Digital Television GmbH, which is based in Vienna . However, the film was shot in Cologne, right next to the GIGA studios . The program was discontinued on November 15, 2007 and ESL TV was brought back onto the market in the course of this .
Web links
swell
- ↑ Alexander Rösch: Giga is being wound up - 53 jobs canceled. In: SAT + KABEL online. Archived from the original on February 16, 2009 ; Retrieved February 13, 2009 .
- ↑ " Premiere wants to join Giga Digital " - DWDL.de , December 19, 2007
- ↑ " FreeTV entry: Premiere takes over TV station Giga " - DWDL.de , January 4, 2008
- ^ " Registered merger projects ( Memento of June 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive )" on the website of the Federal Cartel Office, accessed on January 4, 2008; File number: B6-245 / 07
- ↑ Stephan Borg: GIGA will be discontinued - Thanks to the best community on the net! In: GIGA Blog. Retrieved February 13, 2009 .
- ↑ Thomas Lückerath: Murdoch's gaming website IGN takes over GIGA. In: DWDL.de . April 19, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2009 .
- ↑ Business register