Advanced Television

Funding

Gates buys into satellite antennas

There are now three major would-be mega-constellation low Earth orbit satellite developers: Elon Musk’s Starlink, Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper and the UK/India joint-venture OneWeb (should it emerge from bankruptcy).  The missing link for each of them is a very low-cost phased array antenna to bring satellite broadband to the mass market. Which is perhaps where […]

August 27, 2020

DAZN steps up hunt for $1bn

DAZN Group, the sports subscription and distribution company, is looking to raise new investment of as much as $1 billion. It is reportedly consulting advisors on options including selling assets and an IPO. This is not the first time that the media company has sought investment. Fund raising efforts for $500 million were first reported […]

August 21, 2020

ITV, BBC invest big in BritBox Australia

ITV and BBC Studios (BBCS) are set to invest more than A$35 million (€21.2m) into BritBox’s Australian operation, which is scheduled to launch this autumn. BBCS and ITV will both invest A$17.7m ($12.7m) into the SVoD platform over the next three years. The service, which launched in the US in 2017, and has since also […]

August 21, 2020

$2bn of fresh finance for SpaceX

SpaceX has generated some $1.9 billion of fresh funding during August, and according to reports, is still looking to raise more cash. The initial target was to raise $2.066 billion. The cash-raising exercise follows on from SpaceX raising $346 million in May. The news comes as Musk achieves 4th position as the world’s richest person […]

August 20, 2020

Amazon donates £1.5m to support UK creative community

Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Studios have announced a $6 million (€5.09m) commitment to support the European TV and film production creative community through the Covid-19 pandemic. Donations from the fund will be made to Covid-19 relief funds in countries across Europe to support the creative community as TV and film production begins to restart […]

August 13, 2020

UK gigabit rollout milestone reached

Almost 500,000 premises across the UK have been connected to gigabit-capable broadband since summer 2018. This is part of a £1 billion (€1.11bn) government funding commitment until the end of 2021, with a further £5 billion for the hardest-to-reach areas to be earmarked soon. It means that, alongside commercial investment, more than 7.5 million premises […]

August 11, 2020By Colin Mann

£500m ‘jump-start’ for UK production industries

In a major move to jump start the UK’s cultural and creative sectors following lockdown, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has announced the launch of a Government-backed scheme worth half a billion pounds (€551m) for domestic film and TV productions struggling to get coronavirus-related insurance. The Government has also set out how organisations can apply for […]

July 29, 2020By Colin Mann

SpaceX wants another $1bn

Elon Musk, flushed with the stock market success of his Tesla vehicle business, is seeking to raise more cash. This time the cash would go to SpaceX. This fund-raising would be the N-series and Musk, according to Bloomberg, wants at least $500 million and possibly $1 billion which would give his rocket-launching business a valuation […]

July 27, 2020By Chris Forrester

Official: ‘UK OneWeb cash poor value’

UK senior civil servants have formally warned the government that its commitment to put $500 million into a joint venture with Bharti Global to buy bankrupt satellite operator OneWeb has a high risk of losing all the investment. OneWeb is currently totally unprofitable and it is likely to need considerable further investments for satellite building […]

July 23, 2020By Chris Forrester

Technicolor shareholders approve financial restructuring

Media and entertainment technologist Technicolor has confirmed that, on the basis of information received, all resolutions required to implement the financial restructuring plan have been approved, with a very large majority, for the shareholders’ general meeting to be held today, July 20th. As planned, the first part of the new financing was concluded on July […]

July 20, 2020