Metro TV For Sale?

Information available to Hi Newspaper reveals that the current management of Metro TV, Ghana's first private free-to-Air channel, may soon off-loaded relevant stakes to an outside partner.

Hi Newspaper recently received info that ceo Mr. Talal Fatal, owner of OMP, the management company of Metro TV, will be selling off controlling stakes in Metro TV to a Nigerian businessman.

Later on, we got information that a U.K based Ghanaian company was close to securing twenty per cent of OPM's majority 60% stake in Metro TV.

Just recently, info gathered by yours truly placed a top politician (who recently chalked major political success) as one interested and ready to bag the ‘going’ 20% stake in Metro TV. Under the alleged deal, we are not sure whether Ghana Broadcasting Corporation will maintain its 40% stake in Metro TV. No financial details were released by our source.

When Hi Newspaper contacted Mr.Talal Fatal, he made this comment via sms to our editor's cell phone.

“I have been on leave and just arrived this week. To my surprise, lots of misinformed reports are circulating around sale of Metro TV. I would like to clarify that THERE'S NO SUCH SALE OF METRO TV IN TOTAL OR OUR INTERESTS IN IT. We will send out an official press release when Metro TV will be ready, or not, to make such a move in the future”.

The move, according to our source, is not seen as a sign that Mr. Talal Fatal is losing interest in the country's number one TV Station.

“He wants to concentrate on his 100% owned sports channel, Metro Plus, currently on UHF”, our source hinted.

Mr. Talal Fatal was quoted recently at the World Cup South Africa 2010 as saying he would turn Metro Plus into a DTT channel by the end of the year and wanted to do six channels.

As with any acquisition, there will be areas of work duplication and overlap between the two organizations being brought together, creating redundancies.

“It's a done deal as far as I'm concerned, it's just a matter of making the official announcements and then the next to be taken will be to begin laying-off over 80 employees”

To confirm the haste in washing his hands off and getting ready for a transition team, our source hints that workers of Metro TV with outstanding debts (especially from car loans) have been informed in writing to either renegotiate their debts or propose a relieves.

According to our source, flagship programmes Good Morning Ghana, Good Evening Ghana, Advertisng Cycle and Thank God is Friday (a collabo with Saphire Gh.) are likely to stay on the network after the transition no matter how much stake was left for the current CEO.

Also, CEO Tallal Fatal's brain child, MTN Soccer Academy, first football reality show, is set to roll another season in a couple of weeks.