German media consolidation

According to the FAZ, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the German company Deutsche Telekom is planning to own Sprint or atleast buy a stake in it. Sprint is the US' third largest cellphone provider. I assume Verizon is number one followed by Cingular.

Although nothing is confirmed yet, purchasing Sprint is a priority for Deutsche Telekom. Apparently the Sprint-Nextel company is losing a lot of money in the stock market and has become a really weak company. Deutsche Telekom owns T-Moble as well. Therefore, T-Mobile and Sprint would essentially be the same company. Consumers would have less mobile service providers to pick from.

When researching Germany, I found that they have media conglomerates that merge with the US. Another example is the German media conglomerate, Bertelsmann. Surprisingly, Bertelsmann owns Random House and 50% of Sony BMG Music.

Germany has a balance of private and public media, similar to the US. The private media companies of Germany, like Bertelsmann, are strong and look to concentrate their media ownership between countries not just between different types of media.