South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, wants the government to create a “household tax” on every home to fund its activities. “The current TV licence fee system should be scrapped and replaced with a device-independent, tech-neutral household levy for public broadcasting, which would levy all households, with exemption for the indigent and discounts for pensioners,” said […]
Fast-growing African telco Liquid Telecom has raised 12.4 billion Rand (about €700 million) in a bond sale. The company, backed by telecoms tycoon Strive Masiyiwa (who also sits on Netflix’s main board) and who heads up the Econet business, says it will use the fresh funds to refinance existing debt and expand its broadband business […]
Researchers at Quilty Analytics have carried out a running total of SpaceX’s fund-raising exercises and estimate that the Elon Musk-backed business has raised around $6 billion (€4.9bn) since the announcement of its – then proposed – Starlink broadband-by-satellite service in 2015. Quilty says its calculations show some $6.54 billion, not including debt financing and the […]
Clare Sumner, Director of Policy at the BBC, has called for a radical reappraisal of the role the Corporation plays in shaping the wider broadcast market to inform the debate about its future. Delivering a keynote speech – The evolving role of the BBC – to the Westminster Media Forum policy conference on ‘The future […]
Plume, the company behind the smart home service offerings of more than 170 Communications Service Providers (CSPs) served to more than 22 million households across the globe, today announced that it has closed a $270 million minority investment from global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners. This Series E round at a $1.35 billion […]
Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat, which last week announced plans to build 300 Low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites for its Lighspeed project, is to receive a C$400 million (€260m) investment from the government of Quebec. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by Telesat and the Quebec government. There is a catch. The cash comes in […]
SpaceX has wrapped a fundraising round of a reported $850 million (€704.4bn) to help pay for his new Starlink launches and development work on his Starship/Mars project. CNBC reports that the new cash was generated by the sale of shares at an impressive $419.99 per share and thus giving the privately held business a value […]
Intelsat says it has received backing from some of its creditors – holding some $3.8 billion of the company’s debt – to reduce its overall debt by some 53 per cent from around $15 billion to $7 billion. As at September 30th the company owed $14.4 billion to its creditors. Intelsat has filed its Plan […]
London-based Avanti Communications has received all the necessary approvals to increase its borrowings. The end result is a capital injection of $30 million and taking its basket of borrowings from $145 million to $190 million (which includes other obligations). Avanti received consent approval from 78.49 pe rcent of note holders. The approvals and further borrowing […]
The UK Government has confirmed that from April 1st 2021, the cost of the annual television licence fee will increase from £157.50 (€178.90) to £159.00. The Government, which is responsible for setting the level of the licence fee, announced in 2016 it would rise in line with inflation for five years from April 1st 2017. […]