Viacom’s shares crashed a worrying 21.5 per cent on February 9th following on from a troubling set of results and not helped by recent succession worries. Analysts at MoffettNathanson Research summed up the day by bluntly saying “All of our hoped-for catalysts appear to be gone”. A report to clients stated that they had expected […]

The past year has been near-spectacular for Netflix. It has grown its core subscriber numbers and revenues, expanded the number of countries covered and a growing approval rating for much of its high-quality output. Yet, shareholders seem disenchanted and of late its share price has slipped (down from $131 back on December 4th to less […]

London-based specialist satellite operator Avanti saw its shares fall in value some 13.4 per cent on February 4th following the release of its half-year results. Avanti reported a narrowed pre-tax loss for its first half, and guided for 50 per cent revenue growth from its continuing business at constant currency for its full year. Avanti […]

Satellite operator SES is not winning friends in the investment community. Despite a couple of mostly positive investment reports last week, its share price has continued to be under pressure. Back in May last year, its share price was €35. Last week it barely touched €24.00. A report from equity analysts at investment bank Jefferies, […]

Satellite operator Eutelsat has enjoyed a good few days in terms of its share price and helped by a very positive pair of reports from investment banks. One report, from equity analysts at Exane/BNP-Paribas, comes with a “BUY” recommendation and a target share price up 22 per cent at €35 a share (and already rising […]

Not so many years ago, Dr Abe Peled, the much-missed CEO – at the time – of content protection specialist NDS (now part of the giant Cisco Systems conglomerate) joked that until broadcasters started feeding programming direct into the brain, then his encryption system would be quite adequate! But Peled’s cautionary forecast is now a […]

The race to successfully return rockets to Earth following launch is well and truly taking place. Three billionaires are behind the activity. On the one hand there’s Elon Musk, flush with cash from his PayPal dividends and now helped by cashflow from his Tesla electric car business. On the other there’s Jeff Bezos, the billionaire […]

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 […]

January 20th saw the US Dow Jones share index crash more than 500 points. Amongst the top fallers were media and technology stocks. Twitter, despite being helped by rumours that News Corp might be a buyer, at one point hit a new ‘low’ of $15.48. Mainstream stocks also suffered, with Netflix and CBS dropping more […]

Love him or hate him – and, like most, I have a chronically schizophrenic attitude – you have to hand it to Keith Rupert Murdoch. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again: 84 years-old, three marriages down, let’s just give it one more (bets anyone?) go. Ripper. I for one don’t want to […]