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| Tuesday | |||||
Research conducted by the UK government shows that its plans to switch the country to digital television have alienated millions of viewers.
According to reports, 50 per cent of those questioned in a study by the Department of Trade and Industry "disagreed" with the policy of switching off the analogue television signal by 2010. Only 38 per cent said they agreed with the plan.
Critics complained that the strategy would force those with analogue sets, which can receive only the five terrestrial stations, to incur extra costs if they wanted to continue to watch television.
The public also
said it did not trust the Government's motive and doubted it was in the interests
of viewers.
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Jana Bennett, the BBC's Director of Television, has suggested that publicly funded broadcasters such as the BBC have the potential to play a crucial role in developing programmes for the digital, interactive age.
"I see a special place for publicly funded broadcasters to be the creative engine room for television," she told delegates at MIPTV/MILIA. "While we've found ingenious new ways of serving up television, the content itself can be pretty familiar fodder. How and where we can watch comedy, drama and entertainment have undergone a revolution. The programmes themselves have not."
Delivering a keynote conference speech, Bennett reported that the BBC had recently undergone a 'convergence', becoming the first major broadcaster in the UK to bring its enhanced television operation within the main TV team. ''Interactivity is now fully embedded into our approach to making and commissioning television from the Olympics' biggest ever interactive coverage to classical music.''
She predicted that an integrated approach to commissioning TV would ultimately result in greater audience connection and engagement. "This is good news for our audiences in the UK and also in our overseas markets where we are seeing increasing demand for both our programmes and our interactive content."
Bennett, a leading
candidate for the vacant post of BBC Director General, said she wanted the
corporation to be a pioneer of original programming. ''As a publicly funded
broadcaster, we can afford to take more risks. Our secure funding is a licence
to experiment. In doing so, we can pave the way for other programme-makers
to be braver.''
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German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media has nominated former BSkyB head Tony Ball for its supervisory board. Ball is one of six additional supervisory board members ProSieben is asking shareholders to elect at its annual meeting on May 7.
His nomination, published in the invitation to the annual meeting, comes a week after US investor Haim Saban, who has taken over the German broadcaster, said pay-TV could be a good strategic addition to ProSieben's family of free-to-air stations in Germany.
The other new nominees represent some of the private equity firms that backed Saban in the ProSieben takeover last year.
In the invitation
to the annual meeting ProSieben asks shareholders for permission to issue
new shares on top of a E280million capital increase planned for April. It
also asks for permission to buy back 10 per cent of both its common and its
preference shares.
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Satellite racing channel Attheraces said that it would seek more than £50 million (E70 million) in rebates from 49 racecourses as it formally terminates its broadcasting rights agreement.
Attheraces ceased broadcasting UK racing yesterday, but said it remained hopeful of securing a new agreement, and would continue to offer interactive betting while televising US racing in the evening.
Racing industry
sources said the channel could struggle to reclaim the money. While the original
£307 million 10-year rights deal with the courses does provide for rebates,
Attheraces is only entitled to 50 per cent of the revenues from future broadcasting
rights deals agreed by the courses. The channel has so far paid courses nearly
£100 million for less than two years coverage.
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France Telecom, Europe's second-biggest phone company, has announced a major management shake-up as part of its plan to refocus on consumer marketing and brands rather than its traditional network business.
One of the casualties of the restructuring is Sol Trujillo, the CEO of FT's mobile arm Orange, who is to step down from his post.
Trujillo, who has been at the helm of Orange since February last year, will be replaced by Sanjiv Ahuja - currently COO of the mobile business. He was brought in to Orange in April last year. The company said Trujillo's exit from the business had been agreed for some time and was part of an ongoing strategy. However he is being retained by Orange as a special advisor.
John Alwood, who is head of Orange UK, will be promoted and will also join a new France Telecom executive committee that will be dominated by management from Orange. France Telecom has decided to focus its efforts on its mobile business and its broadband internet service, Wanadoo.
Under the new structure there will be five separate divisions within France Telecom. The two main ones will be Home (the residential fixed-line business) and Wanadoo. Others will include Personal, which is the Orange mobile operation, Enterprise, which is the business and corporate division and International (France Telecom's Polish business).
As a result of the shake-up there will be six changes to the executive committee of France Telecom which equates to a third of the existing executive committee members. Orange will have three representatives on the committee, with the other divisions having just one.
The company's
restructuring represents the biggest change the company has undergone under
Thierry Breton, the group CEO.
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German media giant Bertelsmann has posted a 20 per cent rise in underlying 2003 earnings, helped by cost cuts and good Christmas sales at music division BMG. It is now eyeing new acquisitions.
"Bertelsmann builds on a healthy foundation. All corporate divisions are profitable, and our finances are in order. We now return to concentrating on growth," said Bertelsmann Chairman & CEO Gunter Thielen at the Annual Press Briefing.
The television, radio and TV production group RTL Group and the media services provider Arvato also had significant improvements in their results, the company said.
Due to the weak US dollar and the sale of the Bertelsmann Springer division, consolidated revenues declined by 8.3 per cent to E16.8 billion in 2003, compared to E18.3 billion in the previous year. However it remained nearly stable when adjusted for currency and portfolio effects.
Operating Return on Sales (ROS) improved to 6.7 per cent (previous year: 5.1 percent) and net financial debt was reduced to E820 million, from E2.7 billion year-end 2002.
In 2003, Bertelsmann
generated a significantly increased operating result, with Operating EBITA
of E1,123 million (previous year: E936 million), despite declining revenues
and a tough economic environment.
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YooMedia, the interactive TV and mobile entertainment company, has bought interactive games and betting channel 'Fancy a Flutter' - a joint venture between NDS and Rank. The consideration will be financed by an exchange of YooMedia shares.
Since its launch last year, Fancy a Flutter has successfully established itself as one of the leading gaming sites on the SkyDigital platform. NDS will continue to support the backend operation through its subsidiary Orbis and Martin Graham-Scott will remain 'Fancy a Flutter' MD.
YooMedia is a
digital TV and wireless entertainment company that provides services including
chat, games and dating products. Recently, YooMedia acquired GoPlay TV, an
interactive-games channel currently operated by Sony Pictures Digital. It
has also signed an exclusive three-year partnership agreement with online
gambling business Sportingbet Group.
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Quantum Bridge's devices are designed to steer communications lasers over fibre-optic cables directly into consumer homes and businesses.
Once the acquisition
is complete, Motorola will integrate Quantum Bridge's technology with its
existing set-top box and DSL offerings. The technology complements Motorola's
existing technology portfolio and enhances the company's ability to offer
a full-service access platform.
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Other options are being considered as the UK's smallest terrestrial channel searches for a partner to bolster its presence in the digital TV market. "In the next 18 months we will make a decision [on] which alternative we are going to take. What we need is a multi-channel strategy," Zeiler was reported as saying.
Gunter Thielen,
the CEO of RTL parent group Bertelsmann, added that Five would have to link
up with another broadcaster. "In the long term, Five is too small ...
Channel 4 is one option, but we could also talk to BSkyB. But there are no
talks at present," he said.
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Two Way TV is announcing a new set of text-to-TV games formats at Milia. TV viewers will play these games using their mobile phones to interact with what they are watching on screen. The news of these games comes just a week after Two Way TV announced an exclusive mobile content deal with ITV.
Commenting on
the new suite of games, Liz Chandler, head of creative at Two Way TV, said:
"We're taking our interactive creative skills and creating compelling
mobile-based games."
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NBC Olympics is using digital video transmission equipment from Scopus Network Technologies to transport its 24-hour coverage of the 2004 Olympic Games from Athens (August 13- 29).
NBC will transmit the signals from the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Athens to various sites in the United States for broadcast via the networks of NBC, including the first-ever Spanish-language US broadcast on Telemundo.
Scopus E-1100
MPEG-2 DVB encoders, installed at the IBC, will transmit round-the-clock coverage
of the Games on six channels via satellite and fibre optic cable to Scopus
IRD-2800 integrated receiver decoders at NBC's US headquarters.
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French authorities have opened a formal investigation into alleged share price manipulation at French media group Vivendi Universal during the reign of controversial former Chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier.
Prosecutors have placed Vivendi's treasurer Hubert Dupont-Lhotelian, his assistant Francois Blondet, and the head of Deutsche Bank's French equities business, Philippe Guez, under investigation. These are the first formal investigations since prosecutors opened the probe into Vivendi in October 2002, four months after the resignation of Messier as CEO.
The three are accused of executing a massive share buyback that may have broken French stock market law, and manipulated Vivendi's share price in September 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
Ousted CEO Jean-Marie Messier also demanded to be placed under investigation, which precedes formal charges. Messier was reported as saying: "I request to be placed immediately under investigation to take responsibility for this legitimate decision by the company, to explain myself and to defend my former colleagues."
According to a report in Le Monde, Messier ordered company officials to buy back its shares despite warnings from bankers that the purchases were likely to be illegal. The newspaper published what it claimed were e-mails from Deutsche Bank warning Vivendi that it believed the share purchases it had been asked to conduct were illegal under French market rules.
Three months
ago, Vivendi agreed to pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission $50 million
to settle fraud claims. The SEC also stripped Messier of a E20 million golden
parachute, fined him $1 million and barred him from holding US directorships
for 10 years.
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Some of Europe's largest media companies - including British Sky Broadcasting, RTL, Mediaset and Reed Elsevier - are urging the European Commission to clamp down on state aid to publicly-funded broadcasters, according to a report in the FT.
In a joint complaint to Brussels, groups representing the EU's commercial TV, radio and publishing companies claim that publicly-funded rivals, such as Germany's ZDF and the UK's BBC, received E82.2 billion of state aid in the five years to 2001, distorting competition and harming trading conditions.
The private broadcasters claim they have uncovered evidence showing that state aid has risen at 4.8 per cent a year since 2001, when publicly-funded broadcasters received a total of E15 billion.
Commercial media groups are calling on Commission officials to discuss alleged anti-competitive aid at meetings in Brussels next month. A policy document produced by the European Publishers Council, the Association of Commercial Television and the Association Europeenne des Radios urges the Commission to introduce tougher measures to prevent market abuse.
Ross Biggam, director general of ACT, said: "There is insufficient control between the European Commission and member states on the proportionality of aid and the use to which it's put."
Other companies
supporting the complaint include Telecinco of Spain, Germany's Axel Springer,
Canal Plus of France and Sweden's Bonnier Group.
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Hong Kong firm NTT DoCoMo is said to have begun talks with Hutchison Whampoa to end its investment in Hutchison 3G UK.
According to reports, the companies are now negotiating the conditions of the investment, which could possibly end up with DoCoMo withdrawing from Hutchison 3G UK.
Hutchison is also planning to list a collection of telecommunication businesses from eight countries on the Hong Kong stock exchange, seeking to generate cash to cover losses from $22 billion in investments in high-speed mobile services in Europe.
The sell-off of the units could help raise part of the $2 billion the conglomerate needs to pay for increased 3G expenditure.
However, analysts said the amount to be raised would depend on whether Hong Kong investors back the IPO of such a diverse group of assets.
Meanwhile Hutchison
said it is to half the price of the NEC 616 handset for its 3G business in
Hong Kong. The company is also aiming to double the sign-up rate to its 3G
service globally, which currently stands at 10,000 customers a day.
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XY.tv, a 24-hour network of original lifestyle and entertainment shows designed for 12 to 34 year olds, has signed a deal with SES Americom for programme staging and satellite distribution services.
XY.tv is delivering live and recorded programming over the Internet to SES Americom's Internet gateway and satellite uplink facilities in Woodbine, Maryland. Here the content is packaged, stored and delivered to cable headends across the country aboard Americom's AMC-1 satellite - one of two satellites that combine to form the Cable2 neighbourhood.
XY.tv combines
its television channel with an interactive web experience that, it claims,
explores a wide range of topics and issues young people face in today's world.
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US telco Level 3 Communications is to launch two broadband telephone services that will enable cable television companies and others to offer residential VoIP services in more than 300 of the largest markets in the US by the end of 2004.
The new services, (3)VoIP Enhanced Local service and HomeTone, will enable cable operators, internet service providers and others to provide IP-based local and long-distance voice service to consumers using any broadband connection to the home.
Level 3 joins a number of US companies which have announced plans to offer VoIP services this year. The move is likely to cause further turmoil in the US telecoms market - particularly for traditional local phone companies.
"The US consumer voice market, which is valued at over $65 billion a year, is on the verge of fundamental change," said Sureel Choksi, President of Softswitch Services for Level 3. "The growth of residential broadband access, coupled with the increasing adoption of VoIP technology, is allowing a wide variety of companies to pursue the consumer voice market. The (3)VoIP service will provide building blocks for "do-it-yourself" companies."
AT&T, the
US long-distance carrier, is due to begin the formal roll-out of its residential
VoIP service, dubbed CallVantage, this week. Several other cable operators
are also due to launch broadband telephone services.
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ITV is planning to double the amount of interactive television programming it transmits and is assembling a roster of agencies to help develop this side of its programme strategy.
Louise Okafor, head of programme management and interactive at ITV, is overseeing the pitch and a decision is expected by the end of April. "We're looking at doubling our interactive output," said Okafor.
The broadcaster
wants to develop programming formats that have interactivity at their root,
rather than functionality bolted on as an afterthought. Currently ITV lags
behind most terrestrial broadcasters, especially the BBC, when it comes to
providing digital TV viewers with interactive services.
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ExTV has signed a three year deal with Convergys, licensing its Wizard subscriber management and billing system for its new, all-digital multi-channel TV service.
Specially designed for Hong Kong viewers, exTV recently launched its full-service package of 27 channels featuring local programming and entertainment from around the world. ExTV is a joint venture between Intelsat, a leading global communications provider, and Television Broadcasts Limited, Hong Kong's premium content provider and broadcaster.
Wizard is Convergys'
comprehensive subscriber management and billing system which, it claims, is
designed to handle industry-wide demands faced by cable, satellite, and broadband
service providers.
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Sumner Redstone, Viacom's Chairman and CEO, has confessed that the media company shouldn't have abandoned plans it was studying two years ago for a cable network aimed at gays, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Such a channel now could "be worth a billion dollars," Redstone told analysts and investors, and would have cost only $30 million to launch.
Redstone has
now ordered Tom Freston, Chairman and CEO of Viacom's MTV Networks, to come
up with a business plan for the country's first gay-themed network. Viacom
officials decline to comment on the channel, which is back on the front burner.
It doesn't yet even have a name, though Outlet has been discussed.
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EchoStar posted fourth quarter earnings of $3 million, including the effects of $51 million in charges associated with bond redemptions in the quarter and a $56 million charge associated with royalty obligations. The company had a loss of $716 million a year earlier, a figure which included a $690 million charge relating to a failed merger with Hughes Electronics.
For the year ended December 31, 2003, EchoStar reported total revenue of $5.7 billion compared to $4.8 billion for the year ended 2002, an increase of 19 per cent.
Earlier in the
month, EchoStar's DISH Network satellite television service reported that
it added approximately 340,000 net new subscribers during the fourth quarter
of 2003. DISH Network had approximately 9.425 million subscribers as of December
31, 2003, an increase of 1.245 million subscribers over December 31, 2002.
Also, EchoStar earlier reported that it had agreed to reverse an accrual of
$30 million in expenses, on a pre-tax basis, in 2002 relating to the replacement
of security cards in leased set-top boxes.
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US papers are reporting
that the angry 48-hour standoff between Viacom and EchoStar Communications
that recently left more than 9 million Dish Network subscribers without many
channels could be just a warm-up for the main event.
News Corp.'s DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite TV operator, will hold
the line on programming costs in 2004, accepting only monthly price increases
per subscriber that are roughly equal to inflation, at a four-decade low of
1 per cent.
"We really do believe that costs need to be in keeping with inflationary
increases. We'll do what we need to do to make sure that happens," says
Stephanie Campbell, senior vice president of programming for Los Angeles-based
DirecTV.
DirecTV supports the aggressive positions of Charlie Ergen, CEO of EchoStar, and Jim Robbins, CEO of cable's Cox Communications, who have gone public with opposition to price increases. "It's reaching a point where all operators are feeling the need to take a stand on programming costs. They're such a big part of our expenses," Campbell says.
The main begotiation
for DirecTV this year will be to sit across the table from ESPN where CEO
George Bodenheimer, recently settled with Cox's Robbins by agreeing to a price
increase of 7 per cent in exchange for a longer contract: nine years. ESPN is making
similar offers to DirecTV, which has 12.2 million subscribers, and Comcast,
the nation's largest distributor with 21 million customers.
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US media conglomerate Comcast announced that it has signed an agreement with Vulcan Programming to acquire TechTV. Comcast will merge TechTV with G4, its television network devoted to video games and the gamer lifestyle.
"The acquisition of TechTV would create a network that complements Comcast's growing content portfolio and expands G4's distribution," the company commented. The combined channel would be available to 44 million cable and satellite customers nationwide.
Charles Hirschhorn, founder and CEO of G4, will be the CEO of the combined network. "This merger is a win for G4; a win for TechTV; and a win for our advertising and affiliate partners," said Hirschhorn. "The result will be one compelling TV channel that showcases the fun and entertaining side of games and technology with the distribution necessary to achieve broad appeal."
EchoStar will have an equity interest in the combined entity and has agreed to make the channel available to its DISH Network customers who subscribe to its mid-level America's Top 120 programming package or greater.
Launched in 2002,
G4 is currently seen in 15 million cable homes nationwide and was created
for the 145 million gamers in the US who spend upwards of $11 billion annually
on video games. TechTV, previously known as Ziff-Davis TV, was launched in
1998, was purchased by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan in 2000
and is now available in 43 million homes in the US.
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China's Shanghai Media Group (SMG) wants to set up a joint venture home shopping channel with Korea's CJ Group with the intention of launching April 1.
SMG is taking advantage of China's new rules that allow foreigners to make direct investments in Chinese production companies in order to raise standards closer to world levels. SMG and CJ Group will each invest $12 million in the venture, although the Chinese will have the majority stake with 51 per cent.
SMG believes the venture will reduce its dependence on advertising, which currently accounts for 90 per cent of revenue. CJ Group already runs home shopping channels in South Korea and Taiwan and the Chinese believe the model is suited for Asian audiences. They have applied to the Chinese regulator, the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television, for permission to carry five hours a day of home shopping programming on one of its cable TV channels.
SMG reaches around
3.5 million cable TV homes in Shanghai, one of the wealthiest cities in China.
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European mobile users have dealt a blow to the prospects of early mass 3G adoption just months ahead of the widespread launch of 3G services across Europe.
These are the findings from the latest HI Europe Poll of attitudes towards 3G, conducted online in six key European markets (Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium) among almost 10,000 mobile users.
The survey results among mobile users showed an apparent lack of interest in 3G:
- 49 per cent agree that 3G is of no interest and that current mobile phone technology completely satisfies their needs (20 per cent disagree)
One of the reasons for this could be that many mobile users want no more than a good voice service while 3G's key advances relate to mobile data:
- 44 per cent agree that,
looking ahead, they can't see themselves using mobile phones for much more
than making voice calls (35 per cent disagree)
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Boxer, the Swedish DTT service, now has 230,000 digital TV customers, an increase with 30,000 customers during the first quarter 2004. Boxer now offers a complete range of the most popular channels and the numbers of customers are expected to increase rapidly.
Since the MTG channels started to broadcast, the platform has all of SVT:s channels TV3, TV4, Kanal5 and ZTV. The DTT network offers the following channels:
SVT1, SVT2, the
news channel 24 as well as Barnkanalen. SVT plans, together with Utbildningsradion,
to launch Kunskapskanalen during the autumn.
TV3, ZTV as well as TV8, which will start broadcasting in April.
TV4, TV4 Plus and MediTV. TV4 Film will be launched during the spring Kanal
5
The children's channels Disney Channel and Nickelodeon
The music channels MTV and VH1
The sport channels Eurosport
The documentary channels Discovery and Animal Planet. Discovery Travel and
Adventure will be launched very shortly.
The news channel CNN. BBC World, the European public service channel that
poses a real threat to the American news channels, will shortly be launched
in the USA.
Lifestyle- and fashion channels E! and Style
Film-, sport and event channels Canal+, Canal+ Film1 and Canal+ Film2. Nonstop
Film will shortly be launched.
The regional channel Nollettan and Skånekanalen. Several more regional
channels will shortly be launched.
Boxer TV-Access
AB was founded in 1999 and is owned by Teracom and Skandia. Boxer's business
concept is to offer individual households or entire buildings access to digital
TV and interactive services at a low cost with a regular TV-antenna.
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A basic agreement on royalty payments has been reached between Japanese broadcasters and patent holders of MPEG4 AVC technology, paving the way for the world's first terrestrial digital broadcasting service for cellphones by the end of fiscal 2005.
The technology compresses large volumes of video and sound data, such as digital TV programs, for quick, uninterrupted transmission.
During protracted negotiations started in 2003, MPEG LA, a group of related patentees, demanded that TV networks pay royalties in accordance with the length of viewing time, which the broadcasters maintained was impossible to track.
The broadcasters
eventually agreed to pay $2,500 (275,000 yen) in royalties for each piece
of compression equipment they use, Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) and five
major private networks announced Wednesday. Handset manufacturers will also
be required to pay royalties, the cost of which may be passed on to consumers
via price hikes in the cellphones, sources said.
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Hutchison, the only operator to have yet launched 3G services in Hong Kong, argued that the issuing of a new licence would discourage investment in the sector as the intense competition meant operators were unable to generate sufficient returns.
Hong Kong has six mobile operators serving about 7.19m wireless users. It has one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world at 106 per cent.
The office of
the telecommunications authority, an industry watchdog, proposed last week
to vacate the spectrum of two little-used networks in CDMA and TDMA after
they expire in 2005 and create a new CDMA 2000 licence. CDMA is a widely-used
US network standard while TDMA is a less common standard used in mobile telephony.
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A US judge set a trial for May 6-7 in a lawsuit by Vivendi Universal against tycoon Barry Diller, accused of holding up the big merger of the French firm's entertainment arm with US-based NBC, according to reports in the US press.
The ruling is a victory for Vivendi, which claimed tactics by Diller threatened the deal creating a global entertainment giant with the NBC unit of conglomerate General Electric. The French firm filed suit in Delaware March 16 claiming that Diller had refused to relinquish his stake in Vivendi Universal Entertainment in exchange for letters of credit offering the same value.
Vivendi and NBC agreed last year to combine their assets into an entertainment conglomerate valued at an estimated $43 billion. A condition of closing the deal, however, was that Vivendi extricate itself from a prior agreement with Diller. That agreement stipulated that Vivendi must post a letter of credit to protect Diller from any potential loss in the value of his preferred shares of Vivendi stock.
Diller has balked
at a plan to exchange his shares - said to be valued at $1.99 billion at maturity
in 2022, for letters of credit of $800 million, which Vivendi says is an equivalent
value.
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