Mexico’s Newest TV Drama Is a Bid to Block a Third Broadcaster
MEXICO'S NEWEST TV DRAMA IS A BID TO BLOCK A THIRD BROADCASTER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Elisabeth Malkin]
Mexico’s two competing television companies, Televisa and TV Azteca, have each chosen to focus on the high costs of medicines at the same time. Their separate reporting comes to exactly the same conclusion. The culprits who drive the prices so high are two pharmaceutical distributors who together control 70 percent of the market. And both news teams single out the same one for particular opprobrium: Grupo Casa Saba, a $2 billion company controlled by the reclusive octogenarian billionaire Isaac Saba Raffoul. What neither Televisa nor TV Azteca mentions is that Mr. Saba has his eye on another business: television. Mr. Saba is the Mexican partner of Telemundo, the NBC Universal unit that is the No. 2 Spanish-language television broadcaster in the United States. In September, Telemundo and another company Mr. Saba owns, Grupo Xtra, formally requested a license for a broadcast television network. Both Televisa and TV Azteca say that their coverage is driven only by news judgment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/business/worldbusiness/06tele.html
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Mexico’s Newest TV Drama Is a Bid to Block a Third Broadcaster