Munich - The German television group associated with media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Premiere, surprised markets Monday with a suggestion that it might take over a major German commercial TV channel, Sat. 1.

It was a classic move from a company that is struggling with the uncertainties of a bid for a new season of Bundesliga football broadcast rights, battling hackers who have cracked its pay-TV encryption and trying to gloss up dull financial results.

Premiere is Germany's only major pay television company, doing its best to sign up subscribers to its channel from an audience jaded by a surfeit of free-to-air channels that serve up the full range from highbrow to the tinsel world of what Germans call "trash TV."

Throughout its bumpy history, Premiere has often astounded markets with something unexpected when its outlook looks black.

Its current chief executive, Michael Boernicke, has landed a surprise this time, on a par with the best jolts from his predecessor Georg Kofler. He voiced the interest in buying Sat. 1 (pronounced Sat Eins) in an interview with the newspaper Handelsblatt.

Berlin-based Sat. 1 is a unit of ProSiebenSat. 1, one of Germany's two main commercial broadcasters and operator of two channels, ProSieben and Sat. 1. The group is controlled by private-equity firms KKR and Permira.

TV-industry observers say Sat. 1 alone is worth at least 1.5 billion euros (2.4 billion dollars), and that is well out of Premiere's affordability range.

But then of course there is News Corp, the global company run by Australian-born US media tycoon Murdoch, lurking on the shareholder registry.

That means people take a lot of notice when Boernicke speaks, and just in case you didn't notice, a Premiere spokesman explained again Monday, "We could achieve this kind of project in cooperation with a strategic investor."

Last week, Murdoch nibbled a little more of Premiere, raising his stake in the company to 22.7 per cent. Back at the start of January, he bought a 15-per-cent foothold in Premiere.

In the cool light of day, a bid for Sat. 1 does not look likely to prosper.

Its owner was swift to reject the idea, with a spokeswoman saying, "We have no intention of selling it. We are not talking to anyone about doing so."

Analysts agreed that it was far-fetched.

Firstly, ProSiebenSat. 1 would sacrifice obvious synergies by giving up one of its main channels. Secondly, as one expert pointed out, "Why would they want to assist a potential competitor to get a toehold in the business?"

Besides, the declared mission of ProSiebenSat. 1 after its absorption of Scandinavian broadcaster SBS last year is to challenge RTL, the number one in European commercial TV, notes Michael Bahlmann who tracks media stocks for Bankhaus MM Warburg.

"It wouldn't make sense for them to sell their biggest channel," he said.

Bahlmann said he saw just one faint hope for Premiere.

"ProSiebenSat. 1 isn't exactly cashed up after taking over SBS," he said, noting the Munich-based group spent a massive 3.3 billion euros to take over the Scandinavian chain.

Dominant shareholders KKR and Permira are primarily interested in financial results and might melt if the offer far surpasses 1.5 billion euros, another analyst said: "I think that beyond that level, KKR and Permira would start to think seriously about it."

Premiere would definitely benefit from having a free-to-air channel in its stable.

That would give it more negotiating muscle when acquiring film and sports broadcast rights and offer it a way of extracting both subscription and advertising income from airing them, a spokesman explained.

For example, it could run a top Champions League game live on pay TV at the same time as airing a less important football game for free.

Whether or not the bid makes any progress, Boernicke has at least diverted attention from Premiere's anxiety about whether it will win the upcoming auction of German Bundesliga broadcast rights, which it has lost once before, in the most traumatic episode of the channel's history.

Last year, Premiere turnover sagged 7 per cent to 985 million euros. Post-tax it posted a loss of 52 million euros and its subscriber base, at just 3.65 million households, fell well short of its hopes.

The Premiere stock price has been hovering at 14 euros, only half the price charged at the initial public offering of the stock in 2005.

One analyst said, "I think its chief executive is giving us a signal. He wants to show us he is in charge."(dpa)