娱乐英语新闻:Sale of Italy's smallest TV network drawing bidders including richest man in Asia

ROME, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The fate of Italy's smallest national television network is turning into a proxy battle to determine which company will be the new kid in town in Italy's massive television sector.

Telecom Italia Media, the television arm of former state telephone monopoly Telecom Italia, owns the La 7 national television network, as well as MTV-Italia and some broadcast infrastructure.

La 7 is the smallest of Italy's seven national networks, trailing three each owned by state broadcaster RAI and Mediaset, the television and cinema giant owned by former prime minister and billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi.

At first, the sale of La 7 and Telecom Italia Media's other assets attracted the major players of Italy's broadcast sector.

RAI, the cash-strapped state-owned broadcaster, was never interested, but Berlusconi's Mediaset was, as was Sky-Italia, Mediaset's biggest rival the Italian satellite broadcaster controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born mogul behind multinational media giant News Corp.

But on Wednesday, Mediaset bowed out of the deal. And a few hours later, Sky-Italia sent out a press release saying that reports of the company's interest in Telecom Italia Media's television assets were mistaken, saying that company CEO Andrea Zappia was interesting in "gaining access to Telecom Italia Media's financial data" but that it had "no intention of buying the company."

What that means is that whichever company ends up controlling Telecom Italia's holdings after the process concludes, it will necessarily be a new player in Italy's television sector.

According to the Italian media, the two favorites are U.S.-based cable network The Discovery Channel and 3-Italia, a cellular phone company owned by Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate controlled by Li Ka Shing, thought to be the richest man in Asia.

The other candidates reported to be interested in the bidding for all or part of the company include private equity fund Clessidra; Spanish toll road operator Abertis; EiTowers, an Italian telecommunications tower operator; Italian software company LT Media; and Egypt's Cairo Communications.

"What is interesting about this deal is that whatever company emerges a winner, there's a new company in the sector that no doubt has intentions to shake things up a little," said ABS Securities media and communications analyst Bernardo Ventemiglia.

"This is a sector that hasn't been shaken up significantly since Sky supplanted RAI as Mediaset's biggest rival."

The process is not yet completed, though the preliminary, non-binding selection will take place Sept. 24.

The selection process is complicated by the fact that some bidders are interested in acquiring all of Telecom Italia Media's assets and others are interested only in part.

It remains possible that two bidders interested in different parts of Telecom Italia Media's assets could join to jointly bid on the company and to split it afterwards.

Telecom Italia, Italy's leading fixed-line telephone provider and, through its subsidiary Telecom Italia Mobile, it's largest mobile phone company as well, says it is interested in unloading its media holdings in order to pay down debt and to concentrate on its core telephone business.

La 7 controls only around 4.5 percent of Italy's national television audience, but the sale of the television assets is expected to fetch at least 240 million.