New BBC Chairman Chris Patten has advocated that the organisation should keep control of its commercial arm BBC Worldwide. In a speech to the Royal Television Society, which was mainly about tackling executive payand goverance, Patten said that a sale of BBC Worldwide was not imminent. “It makes no sense to sell Worldwide. Its symbiotic […]
Solaris Mobile, the S-band satellite joint-venture between SES and Eutelsat, is seeking fresh investors for the project. SES CEO Romain Bausch said Solaris’ progress in seeking commercial deals has been slower than expected. Solaris Mobile was an additional payload on Eutelsat’s W2A craft, launched in 2009. While W2A is working perfectly, the Solaris Mobile payload […]
Indian telco and DTH giant Bharti Airtel is reportedly looking to trim more than 2000 jobs. Currently Bharti’s three core businesses (fixed line, mobile and DTH TV) are run as separate divisions even though the retail operations share the same customer-facing stores. The plan is now to merge the three divisions, which collectively generate some […]
Shazam, the technology that lets people use their mobile phones to learn the names of catchy songs, has raised $32 million in funding to bolster expansion plans including a TV service. The new funding, led by venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Institutional Venture Partners, will allow Shazam to double its 100-person […]
Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTÉ, has announced a redundancy scheme in order to cut a minimum of 70 jobs and save €5 million a year. RTÉ, which is funded partly by licence fee and partly by advertising, said the job cuts were essential in light of a €30 million deficit facing the station this year. The […]
Dutch cable operator Ziggo has put an initial public offering (IPO) on hold, reportedly due to volatile equity markets. Ziggo hired Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and UBS at the beginning of April to handle an IPO but no decision has yet been made on when to launch the process. It is also […]
According to the FT the UK government wants commercial television companies to come up with tens of millions of pounds to support Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s local TV stations project. ITV was asked for a cash contribution running into tens of millions of pounds a year and Channel 4 had also been asked to give […]
Virgin Media is celebrating an £81.5 million (€91.4m) VAT refund from HM Revenue & Customs. The refund covers an eight-year period between 2003 and 2011 on an undisclosed part of the Virgin business. It has also agreed to pay a lower-than-expected £23.6 million in VAT as a result of a separate settlement with HMRC, ending […]
The recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to raise FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) ceiling for DTH, IPTV from 49 per cent to 74 per cent have been “accepted” by the I&B Ministry. The recommendations have been accepted to bring parity between DTH and IPTV operators with other service providers said a Ministry […]
Digitalsmiths has announced that the company has closed an oversubscribed $12.5 million expansion financing. The infusion of capital accelerates US domestic and international sales of Digitalsmiths’ video search and discovery products designed to provide an upgrade to the video industry’s rudimentary content search, discovery and recommendation capabilities. Technicolor led the round; all existing investors including […]