Brussels, 21/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - Australian businessman, Rupert Murdoch, the Head of the audio-visual News Corp empire, met Commissioner Mario Monti (Competition) on Friday in order to discuss the project for a merger between two paying television channels, Stream and Telepiù. Spokeswoman, Amelia Torres confirmed that discussions were taking place between the two men but refused to unveil the exact nature of the talks, although she hinted that a possible merger was the reason for the meeting. "A fertile imagination was not necessary to guess what they talked about. You are aware that there are currently discussion on the subject of a possible acquisition of the pay television channel, Telepiù by Stream, controlled by News Corp", she explained. On 8 June, News Corporation signed a letter of intention to buy up Telepiù, the Italian company, for EUR 1.5 billion, which is controlled by the French group, Vivendi Universal and its subsidiary, Canal +. It intends to merge the Trans-Alpino chain with Stream, the pay television platform held in equal measure by the Australian group and the Italian operator, Telecom Italia. The plan is for News Corp to take over 50% of the new entity, which would allow it to control pay television in Italy. Rupert Murdoch needs the support of financial investors to carry out his project and has already met representatives form Italian banks, Banca di roma, Mediobanca, Intesa-BCI as well as Unicredito and is expected to meet with Marco Tronchetti Provera, President of Telecom Italia, who he wishes to convince about providing capital for the merger (25% according to economic sources). Given the breadth of the operation, the merger must be notified to the European Commission, which will examine its impact on competition. The European executive could decide, however, to leave it to the national authorities to examine if the impact is greater in a given Member State, which is case for Stream/Telepiù. The Commission so far has made no comment on the matter.