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.
Yesterday’s news that Sky has signed a pan-European agreement with US premium programming giant Showtime (itself part of the CBS/Viacom empire) is more good news for the pay-TV broadcaster. The news helped balance what is proving to be a challenging pre-results period for Sky. Equity analysts are concerned over how well Germany and Italy are […]
The decision to axe the Al Jazeera America will cause significant losses at the channel, expensively launched on the back of the $500 million purchase of Current TV – a purchase that is still subject to an ongoing series of lawsuits between former vice-president Al Gore and his partners, and Al Jazeera itself. Al Jazeera […]
Consumers can already access broadband and media via smartphones whether they’re sat in a car, on a train and increasingly in the air. However, a new link between Toyota and Kymeta Corp has come up with a satellite antenna that’s capable of handling very high-speed data to cars at domestic-type broadband rates. The technology was […]
Last week equity analysts Exane BNP-Paribas rated Eutelsat as one of their ‘top picks’ in terms of media shares, and their recommendation to “avoid Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES. However, another bank report places a very different perspective on SES and its prospects. Analysts at investment bank Jefferies dig very deep into SES and in particular […]
Last week Intelsat again suffered a bad time in terms of its share price. A Christmas holiday rally (from December 17th to December 24th its ordinary share price rose dramatically from $3.69 to $4.47) but that buoyancy was lost last week when it plummeted from $4.20 on January 4th to just $3.53 by close of […]
Equity analysts at Exane BNP-Paribas in their ‘start of the year’ 61-page overview of what can be expected this year for investors in media stocks. As far as the satellite sector is concerned they have Eutelsat as a “top pick”, although recommend investors “avoid” SES (and Vivendi and Publicis). The bank’s advice is to stay […]
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens this week in Las Vegas, and the received wisdom is that the show will be dominated by larger Ultra-HD TV screen sizes from the major display manufacturers, but different to CES 2015 in that they will all be capable of handling 10-bit depth pixels and thus – at last […]
There has been recent speculation that Britain’s largest commercial broadcaster, ITV, is not only up for sale but that US cable giant Comcast might well be a buyer. This is not the first time that American names have been cited as potential buyers. A month or so ago it was Liberty Global (which already owns […]
Echostar and Dish Network founder Charlie Ergen has “donated” nine million shares he owned in Echostar to a family trust. Each share is currently valued at some $36 so the donation is worth about $324 million today. The transfer, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing made earlier in December, is for “estate planning […]
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