The two remaining arms of Germany's Kirch media empire have filed for insolvency, completing the once-mighty firm's fall from grace.

TaurusHolding, the umbrella company unifying all Kirch's sprawling assets, and KirchBeteiligung, the main media unit, both applied for protection from creditors in a Munich court.

They are almost the last major pieces of Kirch to fail, after the insolvency of KirchMedia in April and its pay-TV arm last month.

Only Premiere World, a subsidiary of failed KirchPayTV, has so far been spared insolvency.

Wednesday's dual filing comes despite talk that support from creditors might have been sufficient to keep the group solvent in some form, probably by selling off its still-valuable assets.

Deutsche Bank recently granted Kirch three months' grace in repaying its debts, using Kirch's stake in publishing group Axel Springer as collateral.

All over now

Before KirchMedia failed in April, the Kirch group had been able to transfer some of its key assets to other divisions.

Now, the insolvency of KirchBeteiligung means those efforts may have been in vain. The unit holds the group's broadcasting rights to Formula One motor racing, as well its stake in Axel Springer.

Surviving unit Premiere World is struggling itself to come up with a survival plan.

Premiere is losing an estimated 2m euros (�1.3m; $1.9m) daily, and is reckoned to have been one of the main causes of Kirch Group's collapse.

Things fall apart

The failure of Kirch has been a huge blow to German business.

Once one of Europe's most admired companies, Kirch - founded by well-connected entrepreneur Leo Kirch - spent billions of borrowed euros on rights for a slew of sporting occasions, including Formula One and the football World Cup.

The rights were intended to underpin sales at the pay-TV business, but subscribers never emerged quickly enough to justify the investment.

As the global economic slowdown took its toll on Kirch's traditional media assets - ranging from film-licensing ventures to newspapers - the expensive failure of pay-TV dragged the rest of the group down.

Kirch's assets are now likely to be fought over by a pack of media rivals, including tycoons Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi.