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.
That’s the problem when a free-to-air network spends $1.23 billion on TV rights for the Olympic Games, they have to earn that cash back – and make a profit. The 2016 Rio opening ceremony, at 4.5 hours, seemed to some commentators on social media that NBC was attempting to break broadcasting records by airing more […]
Avanti Communications saw a dramatic jump in its share price on August 4th. At the start of the day the well-depressed shares were priced at 22p, but as the day progressed at one point they had almost doubled in value (to 39p) helped by a news report on the FT’s Alphaville news blog. At the […]
SES is sitting on a potential cash war-chest equal to some $1.6 billion (€1.47bn) which could be spent on a global broadband satellite system. The cash pile is building up now as part of the operator’s financial planning and will fully be in place by 2020. Reports in trade magazine Space News say that SES […]
July 29th saw Eutelsat unveil its end-of-year results. It also gave market analysts a chance to question the CEO Rodolphe Belmer on the satellite operator’s strategy. Analysts eagerly wanted to know what the latest news was on Eutelsat’s move to sell its 33.69 per cent stake in Madrid-based operator Hispasat. Somewhat focusing the equity analysts’ minds […]
The satellite industry has had a torrid time lately (and SES and Eutelsat’s numbers are out on July 29th) and one equity analyst, Giles Thorne from investment bank Jefferies, admits that the sector has been very bearish ever since Eutelsat’s profit warning in May. But he praises Intelsat, and says that Jefferies have repeatedly argued […]
France’s Number 1 commercial broadcaster TF1 is having a torrid time. Six or more months ago it might have blamed the ‘economic downturn’ then badly affecting the nation. But the current position, according to analysts at Deutsche Bank, is that French consumer spending is recovering. But this is not the case at TF1. Analyst Laurie […]
Charlie Ergen, founder and chairman/CEO at DISH Network, which on June 21st reported it had lost 281,000 subscribers during its Q2, said he was determined to do without Tribune Broadcasting’s 42 local stations which have been ‘dark’ for more than five weeks. DISH is in a retransmission fee dispute with Tribune which Ergen described as […]
July 28th sees Sky unveil its Q4 and full year results (to June 30th) and equity analysts at Deutsche Bank suggest that investors should not be obsessed with the usual key performance indicators (subs, churn, and such like) and instead focus on Sky’s core financials. Analyst Laurie Davison warns that Sky will suffer rising UK […]
Equity analysts at Deutsche Bank have not recently been totally supportive of the satellite sector, but that changed July 12th when – having “picked through the wreckage” it changed its mind on SES, and is now recommending to investors that they should ‘BUY’ SES shares. Its report says that despite both SES and arch-rival Eutelsat […]
ITV is the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, and one of the very largest players in European TV. But ITV could very much be in the firing line post-Brexit, says a report from equity analysts at investment bank Berenberg. “If we assume that Brexit affects consumer confidence and spending, and that advertisers respond to this less […]
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