RTL’s alleged withdrawal from talks leaves only France’s Vivendi and US group Time Warner in the running, Gazeta Wyborcza said, quoting unidentified sources close to the talks.

Contacted by AFP at its Luxembourg base, RTL spokesman Oliver Fahlbusch declined to comment.

Earlier this week, Vivendi’s supervisory board chairman Jena-Rene Fourtou had confirmed that his group was considering creating a consortium in order to buy TVN.

Polish media have reported that Vivendi is chiefly interested in TVN’s “N” satellite television service which competes with the French group’s Polish arm Cyfra+.

TVN has a stock market value of 4.9 billion zloty (1.1 billion euro, $1.48 billion).

Fifty-six percent of the broadcaster belongs to Poland’s ITI Group, which also owns first-division football club Legia Warsaw and the Multikino cinema network.