In January last year US-based Echostar bought the ailing Solaris Mobile S-band transmission system that is orbiting on a Eutelsat satellite. On May 15th Echostar CEO Michael Dugan told analysts that the new business, Echostar Mobile, would go ‘live’ over Europe in mid-2016. The system is waiting for the launch of a new satellite, Echostar-21. […]
Nobody would blame CBS and Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone for looking to retire. At 91 years-of-age anyone might expect him to step aside and leave the running of his global business to either of two extremely competent senior managers, or even his daughter Shari Redstone, to succeed him. One of the challenges is that CBS […]
On April 21st Sky revealed its quarterly numbers (group revenues up 5 per cent for the 9-months (at £8,453 million), and group EBITA up 20 per cent to £1,025 million). A fresh 21-page overview of Sky’s overall performance was issued May 6th by investment bank Jefferies, and saying that Sky’s growth drivers are in transition. […]
Al Jazeera America is facing a $15 million wrongful termination claim by a former employee, who alleges that executives at the broadcaster have exhibited an anti-American bias, and steadily brought in more Middle East staffers into the US operation. The writ specifically alleges that Osman Mahmud, senior VP of broadcast operations and technology, regularly used […]
A few months ago Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network were successful bidders in the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of AWS-3 wireless spectrum (which overall raised billions of dollars for the US Treasury). Ergen/Dish paid $13.3 billion out of the total $44.9 billion raised by the auction. However, Dish Network received a significant $3.3 billion in financial […]
We are in ‘results season’ as far as the world’s three largest satellite operators are concerned. As a consequence investment bank Jefferies’ has issued a major report on the state of the satellite industry. Intelsat is considered to be market leader, just ahead of SES with Eutelsat in third-largest position. The bank’s Giles Thorne says […]
Liberty Global is expected to unveil its Q1/2015 results on May 7th and one investment banker has issued a report with a share-price target for the MSO of $59 (currently around $52) and helped by steady revenues (expected to be some $4.57 billion) and up about 3.8 per cent y-o-y. Investment house Jefferies, in its […]
A long-running and complex lawsuit between Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera and the Egyptian state over the banning of one of Al Jazeera’s channels has been expanded to include Nilesat, and the adjacent General Authority for Investment & Free Zones which is the formal name given to the Cairo Media City free zone area which […]
An April 1st story in South Africa swept the country like wild fire. The untrue story claimed that South Africa was to abandon its planned switchover from analogue to digital TV. Now that the bills for the conversion process are coming in, it is clear that many locals wish the April Fools hoax was in […]
Sky will report its Q3 numbers next Tuesday on April 21st, and the market is expecting 9-month revenues growing by some 4.9 per cent (to £8.44 billion). But the challenges ahead are not to be ignored, suggests a note from investment bankers Jefferies on April 17th. Sky UK has just announced steep price hikes for […]