News Corp digital satellite operation Sky Italia and broadband operator Fastweb have agreed to combine Sky’s satellite TV offer with Fastweb’s broadband Internet and landline services in a deal aimed at boosting customer numbers in Italy. Under the terms of the new offer, named ‘Home Pack’, consumers will be able to choose entertainment, connectivity and telephony with a single bill [...]
Sky Deutschland is to pay €14.5 million in compensation to institutional investors who claim they suffered losses as a result of the pay TV operator overstating of subscriber numbers. When News Corp took control of Sky Deutschland in 2010 it restated subscriber figures for 2008 from three million down to only 2.4 million, and the share price halved. Sky will [...]
Liberty Global, rival cable group Kabel Deutschland and a number of private equity groups have emerged as bidders in the €2.5 billion-€3 billion ($3.4bn-$4.1bn) auction of Kabel Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s third-largest cable operator. Initial bids for the company, which provides television, telephone and Internet services to 2.3 million customers in the southwestern German region, are due on February 16th. The sale [...]
Fifty-seven per cent of satellite broadband supplier Hughes Communications is being put up for sale by private equity investor Apollo. Intelsat, Echostar and Inmarsat are each said to be looking at the stake and have expressed interest. Maryland-based Hughes sells satellite capacity, including broadband, to the US government, large businesses and private consumers not well served by conventional terrestrial services. [...]
Comcast Corporation and General Electric have closed their transaction to create a joint venture, NBCUniversal, LLC. Under the terms of the transaction, GE contributed to the joint venture NBC Universal, Inc.’s businesses, including its cable networks, filmed entertainment, televised entertainment, theme parks, and unconsolidated investments. Comcast contributed its cable networks, including E!, Versus and the Golf Channel, its regional sports [...]
Cable will retain dominance in the global multi-channel TV market over the next five years but the threat from the new generation of digital and IP services will take its toll, predicts Ovum. Globally cable TV will reach 573 million households by 2015, but will grow by an average of only three per cent per year for that period. The [...]
Mobile ad network Velti has raised over $150 million in an initial public offering in the US. Stocks for the Irish-based company started trading on the Nasdaq and share prices rose 25 per cent. Velti reported total revenues of $38 million for the six months to June 30th 2010, representing a 170 per cent increase year on year. The network [...]
The blogosphere is full of gossip and speculation that an upcoming key date, March 7, could be instrumental in taking pay-radio outfit Sirius XM onto its next stage. Currently the situation is that John Malone’s Liberty Media is – in effect – in control of 40 per cent of Sirius XM (Liberty injected $530m in loans two years ago, convertible [...]
A coalition of UK rights holders including the Premier League and trade bodies representing the music, film and TV are preparing to oppose ISPs in the judicial review of legislation to tackle illegal downloading. The Premier League and eight other organisations, including the Producers’ Alliance for Cinema and Television (Pact), the Motion Picture Association and music industry body the BPI, [...]
ITV has hired ex BBC Online manager James Micklethwait to head a new team responsible for ITV’s online and on-demand products, both free and paid. Micklethwait will be product strategy and customer engagement director. At the BBC, he had previously been programme director for Open iPlayer, the failed project for sharing iPlayer technology with other public broadcasters. Micklethwait will report [...]
