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.
London-based satellite operator Inmarsat is again being talked about as a take-over target. The Financial Times reported that Inmarsat could be a target for EchoStar. This time it is Charlie Ergen, founder of Dish Network and the EchoStar technology company who seems to have started the rumour mill. The FT reports that Ergen discussed possible […]
The past year has seen Netflix and main rival Amazon Prime launch their OTT services in India. Netflix launched on January 6th at 500 Rupees per month (about $7.50). Amazon Prime’s video service launched only a week ago, on December 14th, at 499 Rupees per month. And now the battles have started. Both operators are […]
Some British politicians are calling for 21st Century Fox’s bid for Sky to be blocked – and not just delayed, but completely thrown out. Former Labour party leader Ed Milliband and senior Liberal Democrat figure Vince Cable (a former UK business minister in the Cameron government) are saying that little has changed since a 2012 […]
One equity analyst has called the speedy Vivendi acquisition of Mediaset stock (at 20 per cent, and perhaps counting) represents “a rapid invasion” and asks whether Vivendi’s move will hold steady or advance further. Cheekily, Sarah Simon, equity analyst at Berenberg Bank, in a report (‘Bollore vs Berlusconi’), said “France has not invaded Italy since […]
The December 13 announcement that the BBC and ITV have finally launched BritBox, a SVoD service for ‘the best of British’ output, and which will eventually be available globally, although it will debut in the USA, is long overdue. As a UK licence fee payer, I can only hope that it will prove to be […]
When you have a billionaire backing a business, and there’s no publicly issued quarterly documentation to study, observers could be excused for assuming that all is well with a company like SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk. But the lack of launch activity since a September 1st explosion on one of its Falcon 9 rockets […]
One comment over this past weekend summed up the news, saying: “The return of the Fox”. Prior to Friday’s news that Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox had made an approach to buy the 61 per cent of Sky’s European assets it does not own, Sky’s share price value was in the toilet. Precisely a year […]
AMC Networks has done extremely well out of its compelling ratings hit The Walking Dead, and over the years has been helped hugely by a number of critical and commercial successes not least Mad Men, Breaking Bad and its Better Call Saul spin-off. But a report from analysts at MoffettNathanson Research suggests that the hits […]
Italy has been plagued for more than 10 years by dozens of unlicensed Italian pirate broadcasters. Indeed, they have been on air for so long that they have become part of the ‘normal’ transmission pattern. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has received many complaints from countries adjacent to Italy about interference on a total of […]
The satellite investment community has seemingly decided that shares in Intelsat are worth money. After a couple of years of depressed share prices, November 28th saw a massive 10.32 per cent jump in value to $4.17. The volume of shares changing hands was more than double a normal day’s activity. Indeed, the last three trading […]
Netflix acquires Affleck’s InterPositive
Movistar Plus adds mandatory ads when accessing TV channels 
SES adds new MEO capacity
UK Lords warn of AI impact on creative industries
Eutelsat completes refinancing plan
MVP launches MVPW; signs ESPN deal
Live streaming latency vs on-demand infrastructure reliability
Eurovision Sport provides live subtitling for Paralympic Winter Games
ESPN, Disney, Pixar, NHL team for Inside Out Classic alt-cast
£30m government funding for UK satellite comms