From Colin Mann in London Free-market policy research body The Adam Smith Institute is proposing that the TV Licence Fee should be abolished, and that the BBC should instead become a subscription service. The think tank makes its arguments in a report – Global Player or Subsidy Junkie? Decision time for the BBC – written […]
Five is to lose seven of its nine executive directors in a management cull as new owner Richard Desmond looks to cut £20m (E24m) from the business. In total up to 80 jobs will go. Among the leaving are director of strategy Charles Constable and managing director Mark White. Dawn Airey, the Five chairman and […]
I wonder if Rupert Murdoch allows himself an ironic chuckle that while the UK government (in common with virtually all its counterparts) is preparing legislation to punish consumers and distributors for stealing content rights, its regulator is forcing Sky to handover those rights (or the product of them) for a discounted price. I imagine Murdoch […]
Management gurus and journalists have a habit of ascribing human characteristics to corporations: ‘the sleeping giant,’ ‘the agile start up,’ ‘the strong brand.’ But you hardly ever hear companies described as ‘nerveless,’ or ‘calm’ or ‘wise’. The reason is that they are none of the above and particularly not in the hot house of the […]
BSkyB is in talks to broadcast a 24-hour rolling news service in Arabic, based in Abu Dhabi, as part of a joint venture with a local private investor, according to reports. Entering a highly competitive market, the satellite channel would launch under the Sky News name and be the UK broadcaster’s first venture into a […]
By a party-line split vote of 3 to 2 the FCC has moved toward giving itself the authority to regulate the transmission component of broadband service, a power the commission's Democratic majority believes is central to expanding the availability of broadband. The next step is invite public comment on the proposal to overturn a previous […]
John Malone has stepped down as chairman at DirecTV and slashed his control over the company in a previously announced stock swap meant to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media Corp, and investment banker Paul Gould, a director at the Malone-chaired Liberty Global cable TV giant, also have left the […]
Netgem have confirmed the appointment of Charles-Henri Dutray as Chief Financial Officer. Dutray joins Netgem with more than 13 years of experience in the Corporate Finance world. Prior to the move to Netgem, he was director at Oddo Corporate Finance where for the past five years he was in charge of equity capital market transactions.
Mediaset, which has been ordered to repay millions of Euros it had received in state aid relating to DTT set-top box subsidies (see ATV 16/06/10), will appeal the European General Court's decision. Mediaset will appeal to the European Court of Justice and say that the subsidies were provided direct to consumers and not to broadcasters, […]
Broadband subscription growth took an upswing during the first quarter of 2010, supported in part by healthy DSL growth in every region, strong fibre rollouts in Asia and aggressive IPTV service offerings. Figures from the Broadband Forum show that global broadband lines now top 484 million lines (484,788,597), representing a 3.12 per cent growth in […]