Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
Equity analysts at Deutsche Bank have taken a fresh look at Vivendi in general and Canal Plus in particular, and in a thorough 94-page report says that they are “believers in the Canal+ turnaround” and that C+ is “central” to the Vivendi investment case. “Vivendi has been rationalized back to its core of music and […]
Video entertainment is all-important in so many ways. Netflix has been around for almost 10 years but it is only in the last 2-3 years that it has gained international prominence. Amazon Prime is an even more recent phenomenon. ‘Content is still king’, but the metrics are now changing. A comprehensive 67-page study from the […]
Hot on the heels of one report that suggested that Rupert Murdoch might be about to bring the trio of Sky pay-TV broadcasters into his 21st Century Fox operation comes a highly negative report on Sky including its European businesses. The report comes from equity analysts at Berenberg Bank. The bank has been negative on […]
An unconfirmed report (from the ‘Directors Talk/Betaville’ blog) says that troubled satellite operator Avanti Communications is “on the verge of securing an agreement for a sale”. The report says that 60 per cent of Avanti’s 2016 bondholders (notably MAST Capital and Solus Alternative Asset Mgt, which between them own 26 per cent of Avanti’s equity) […]
MoffettNathanson’s senior analyst Michael Nathanson is concerned that the best days for some multichannel broadcasters could be well over. In a September 27th report he said that the media industry generally is now trading at an 80 per cent discount to the market multiple, and which is the lowest relative level since 2008. “However, we […]
On September 22nd, the Financial Times published a piece that – in so many words – spelled ‘doom and gloom’ for the satellite industry as a whole, and suggesting that the “golden age” for satellite operators was well and truly over. The article linked the recent explosion at the SpaceX as “heightening a sense of […]
There’s little news from beleaguered speciality satellite operator Avanti Communications, other than it is rolling over its already expensive debt obligations by borrowing more cash to keep itself afloat. Avanti, in a September 16th update to its earlier ‘strategic review’ profits warning statement of July 11th, explained how talks were still on-going with potential buyers/funders […]
‘Life or death’ makes a dramatic headline, but that’s the comment from one observer as to anxieties over rocket company SpaceX returning to flight anytime soon. The worries are that a nine-to-12 month delay in returning to its launch tasks could wipe out the business. September 1st saw a SpaceX rocket suffer an on-ground ‘anomaly’ […]
Three-dimensional TV has nothing to do with 3D TV, now largely discounted as yesterday’s technology. But Japan’s NHK public broadcaster is actively looking at holographic television as its next step to follow on from ‘Super Hi-Vision’, its 8K transmission system which starts broadcasting in 2018. 8K/Super Hi-Vision is being developed in time for the 2020 […]
It hasn’t been a secret that the recent launch of Intelsat’s latest ‘Epic’ satellite suffered a post-launch problem. The important satellite was launched on August 24th, and all seemed well, but on September 9th Intelsat said that a “malfunction of its primary [electric] thruster” had suffered an anomaly. The primary electric thruster is designed to […]
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