Leo Kirch Passes Away

FRANKFURT: Leo Kirch, the German tycoon who built a media empire off the back of a valuable library only to declare bankruptcy after betting big on pay television, has passed away at the age of 84.

At its height, KirchMedia, with a staff of some 10,000, was a huge buyer of Hollywood product, had built a substantial and valuable film library and had stakes in Axel Springer, ProSiebenSat.1 and Formula 1. Huge investments in pay TV, however, did not pay off. In 2002, KirchMedia, laden with 6.5 billion euros in debt, declared bankruptcy.

Until his death he remained at war with Deutsche Bank’s former chairman Rolf Breuer, who Kirch alleged prompted the company’s collapse in 2002 by questioning its creditworthiness in a television interview. In his long-running suit against the bank and Breuer, Kirch was seeking 2 billion euros in damages.

Kirch began his media career at the age of 29, using a loan from family members to acquire the German rights to Federico Fellini’s La Strada. He soon developed strong ties with several Hollywood studios, acquiring titles to sell on to German broadcasters, and went on to amass a large portfolio of series, movie and sports rights. He was one of the founders of Sat.1 and then in 1996 gambled on pay TV, investing some $3 billion into building Premiere (now Sky Deutschland). Kirch was tremendously publicity shy and seldom gave interviews. In the ’80’s he was considered one of the most important media moguls in the world, together with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell.

“As an outstanding media entrepreneur and visionary, Leo Kirch shaped the German film and television landscape deeply,” Bernd Neumann, German cultural minister, said in a statement to Bloomberg. “His business actions, which weren’t without risks, have always been characterized by a huge passion for film.”