Brussels, 24/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has authorised the companies RTL Group and ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG to take over joint control of the German company VG Media. A subsidiary of the German group Bertlesmann, RTL is present in the TV and radio sectors as a content provider. It produces its own television programmes, acquires television broadcasting rights and attributes licenses on these rights. Belonging to the German group Kirch, ProSiebenSat is active in the free TV and new media fields. VG Media, to date a 100% owned subsidiary of Kirch, has business activities consisting of protecting media companies' copyrights and related rights linked to cable retransmission. This activity comes within a framework of specific legal conditions arising from the so-called "Wahrnehmungsgesetz" law, which mainly compels VG Media to propose its services to each copyright and related right holder, when the holder so requests. The joint venture is therefore unlikely to entail any partitioning of the market.