In a move that could reshape Israel’s media landscape and has already sparked fierce legal and union opposition, Len Blavatnik, the controlling shareholder of Channel 13 — one of Israel’s two commercial television channels — has reportedly decided to sell his shares in the channel to cable tycoon Patrick Drahi.

The decision comes despite a significantly higher financial offer from a consortium of tech entrepreneurs and amid allegations of political intervention from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s circle.

The deal, which the board of Channel 13 approved in recent days, has set the stage for a bruising legal confrontation.

The Union of Journalists in Israel has already petitioned the attorney general and the competition commissioner to block the sale, describing the proposed new ownership structure as a “fiction” designed to bypass broadcasting laws and warning of a hostile takeover that could decimate the channel’s independent news division.

Blavatnik reportedly rejected a robust offer from a group of Israeli tech leaders led by Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport. According to a report on Sunday in The Financial Times, the group offered to invest approximately $120 million over three years to stabilize the channel and preserve its journalistic independence.

But Blavatnik chose Drahi’s bid, which involves an immediate injection of only $25 million. According to The Marker business daily, sources close to the negotiations suggest the decision was driven not by business metrics but by regulatory and political pressure

Messages were reportedly conveyed to Blavatnik suggesting that a sale to the tech group would face bureaucratic delays orchestrated by the government, whereas a transfer of shares to Drahi — who also owns the HOT cable network and the i24NEWS channel — would be fast-tracked.

“The message was that the government would approve a sale to Drahi in five minutes,” sources close to the negotiations told The Marker.

The urgency of the sale is underpinned by the channel’s acute financial distress. According to financial data obtained by The Marker, Channel 13 burned through NIS 340 million (approximately $110 million) between 2022 and 2025.

The report attributes this collapse to a “management failure” involving heavy investment in expensive reality productions like “Big Brother” and “The Voice” during a period of shrinking advertising revenue.

Without a dramatic turnaround, the channel is projected to lose another NIS 250 million ($80 million) by 2027. This financial hole reportedly left the company unable to survive without an immediate infusion of capital, paving the way for Drahi’s entry.

The central legal obstacle to the deal is Israel’s cross-ownership law, which forbids the owner of cable........

© The Times of Israel