The BBC is expected to lay off more than 2000 staffers as it adjusts to life with lower annual income. The bottom line is that the BBC must slash its £3.5 billion ($5.4bn) budget by some 20 per cent in order to stay solvent. The BBC employs some 18,000 staff in the UK, although grows […]
The European Court of Justice decision on the Portsmouth pub’s right to tune into a Greek version of Premier League football meant a day of headline reactions (mainly over-reactions really), before, by nightfall, all had agreed the judgement needed very careful consideration. The ECJ judgment said: “The Court of Justice holds that national legislation […]
Luxembourg-based SES has been involved in a dispute with Lockheed Martin Space Systems involving millions of dollars, and specifically involving one of Lockheed’s A2100 satellites. While details are of the dispute are sketchy, SES bought two satellites from Lockheed, (SES Astra’s 1KR craft, and Astra 1L) and the argument involved the performance of a satellite […]
There are tipping points in all things. Not very long ago, it seems to me, technology companies, including CA vendors, were going to their pay-TV operator customers and trying to persuade them that the fantastic new functionality they had invented should be deployed. The response was often lukewarm; when your current business model produces profits […]
America’s leading media stocks have seen massive falls in the value as the Dow Jones index continues to suffer a major fall as anxiety increrases over deficits and growth. Most of the USA’s cable stocks fell back on September 22nd. Time-Warner was the exception (up 1 per cent) but its stable-mates all suffered: Comcast […]
YahLive, the satellite broadcasting portion of Abu Dhabi-based YahSat that is managed by SES, is close to signing up its first all-HDTV capacity bookings. While commercial terms have not been revealed, it is understood that the first transponder rentals will go to channels from Abu Dhabi TV. SES admits it is an ambitious “even […]
US pay-radio broadcaster Sirius-XM is in great shape and in formal guidance is predicting a double-digit revenue increase for 2012. CEO Mel Karmazin told a Bank of America conference last week that he’d like to use Sirius’s growing cash pile to help fund a suitable acquisition – but there wasn’t much about! Instead, his Board […]
It wasn’t so very long ago that Iridium, the global/mobile satellite phone and data service, was languishing in Bankruptcy Court. Now, having restructured, it is declaring more than 500,000 subscribers around the world, with some 10 percent made up of US governmental (AKA military) users. “Our consistent double-digit growth in subscribers – more than 25 […]
Satellite operator SES used IBC to unveil its new logo, and told press and conference delegates that it was now carrying 5,905 channels and radio networks and that more than 2400 were being transmitted over Europe. SES is claiming the world’s top spot for HDTV channels, with 1,071 now on air around the globe. (although […]
The normally quiet summer has been anything but this year. It has been full of Events. As a British Prime Minister from what we used to call ‘the ruling class’, replied when asked what caused him most trouble when in office: “Events, dear boy, events”. On that basis it has also been a bad summer […]