A fifth of subscribers to Sky Movies – at least 891,000 UK households – hadn't watched a single movie on the service in an entire month, according to a YouGov survey on subscription movie viewing habits conducted on behalf of BT Vision. 50 per cent of Sky customers surveyed spend more than £45 (E50.6) on […]
German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 cut its 2008 dividend and initiated a new cost-saving programme after its SBS arm and poor advertising markets propelled it to a net loss. The company said it was writing off E180 million against SBS for which it paid E3.3 billion in 2007. For 2008 the Group's consolidated revenues were E3.054 billion […]
ITV the UK commercial channel has reported a worse than expected loss of £2.7bn (E3bn) after massive write downs on its assets. Its operating profit was £167m down 41% on 2007 with virtually all the damage done in the second half with a collapse of advertising revenue. ITV estimates Q1 09 advertising will be down […]
Viacom is sympathetic to Time Warner’s “TV Everywhere” says CEO Philippe Dauman who said the company was “very open” to experimenting with models that would allow cable, satellite and telco TV subscribers to view cable content online. “We think it has to be seamless to the consumer, and we’re working [with the distributors] on the […]
Walt Disney Co was considering moves like creating a subscription-based online video club to capture online consumers as well as revenue that is being lost to piracy, Chief Executive Robert Iger said. Iger told analysts at the Deutsche Bank conference “We’ve also seen a pretty dramatic shift in how people consume entertainment with computers and […]
Internet companies in Britain are being asked to sign up to a new code of conduct for behavioural advertising, in an attempt to quell invasion of privacy concerns over the controversial marketing technology. The UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau has announced a set of guidelines for the systems, which have stirred up passionate reaction among civil […]
German pay-TV operator Premiere's shareholders have approved an E412m capital increase despite minority shareholders' reluctance and dissatisfaction with the company's previous management. Premiere, where News Corp is the largest shareholder, held an extraordinary general meeting on February 25 and small shareholders complained that previous management had wrongly inflated subscriber numbers the discovery of which had […]
Just as Comcast and other Pay TV operators have announced plans to push high-value cable network programming to the PC, research from TDG suggests that their intention to not charge for this content could be a major strategic error and leave hundreds of millions in additional fees on the table. "Cable operators are working aggressively […]
Cash-strapped Setanta and ITV are seeking to renegotiate the payment terms of their £425 million (E474m) rights deals with the UK Football Association for coverage of FA Cup and England international football matches. According to reports Setanta has delayed making a payment of £10 million on its £150 million contract while ITV has met its […]
Time Warner is developing an initiative dubbed TV Everywhere that will allow viewers to watch networks such as CNN, Cartoon Network and TNT online – as long as they can prove they subscribe to cable, satellite or a telecom TV service. “If you want to watch your favourite TV network or shows through broadband on […]