With the all-important CES show opening in Vegas there will be plenty of eyeballs watching for electronics giant Sony’s latest announcements, and whether non-product news confirms what’s happening at the top of the troubled company. One big question is whether Sony will continue its retreat from the TV manufacturing business. There are question marks over […]
Satellite launch provider Arianespace says it will break-even for its 2011 activity, and has a record 13 cargoes planned for 2012, helped by a new fleet of launch vehicles. This year will see seven launches by the heavy lifter Ariane 5, the workhorse of the fleet. Five will be launched by the medium-sized Soviet-Russian space […]
Putting the word oblivion in the name of your business is a bit of a hostage to fortune. So it has proved for Beyond Oblivion, the music start up that was meant to take on the likes of Spotify and iTunes. Over two years, the company raised $87 million from backers including News Corp as […]
A January 3rd report covered by BBC Monitoring says that recent Chinese clamp downs on entertainment and variety shows enforced by the Chinese media regulator (SARFT) has seen two-thirds of the shows vanish from viewer’s screens. Some 34 satellite channels are affected according to the country’s top broadcasting watchdog. Out have gone talent contents, talk […]
From time to time our editorial staff has wished to recognise a major achievement in our industry. We talk amongst ourselves about some major accomplishments during the year, and this is the result: The year’s Top 5 most notable activities recognised. They might not be the Oscars or the Emmys, but they are no less […]
This not a story about a nervous and excessively prudish maiden. It is about the mildly amusing consequences of trying to make your software just a little bit too clever for its own good, and aiming to be the blandest on the block. Virgin Media has, along with most media outlets, decided to try and […]
ITV is doing well in the ratings and might well enjoy a bumper holiday season helped by Christmas specials of shows like Downton Abbey. But a report from the media department at investment bankers Morgan Stanley suggests that 2012 is going to be extremely tough for the network. ITV itself is assuming a flat 2012 […]
To make the point that if you are in the STB business you are in the ‘box business’, I was going to headline this piece ‘BS and basics in the brown goods business’, but I figured there were probably too few people out there who now remember that’s what we used to call all the […]
Investment bankers Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients, suggest that Sky Deutschland is “likely to announce a News Corp-backed [investment raising] before the end of 2011.” The extra cash is needed to make a strong bid for the upcoming sale of Bundesliga TV rights for the 2013-14 seasons, and is likely to be […]
Intelsat, the world’s largest satellite operator, has filed an application with US regulators to transfer its various assets to a new company following on from an Initial Public Offering (IPO) which it intends to make in the near future. No date for the IPO has been set. The FCC filing says that Intelsat will end […]