Scripps Networks, the owner of the Food Network and HGTV, snapped up a majority stake in the Travel Channel. Cox Communications will keep a 35% stake. The agreement between Scripps and Cox concluded a long series of bids by Scripps, the News Corporation and a number of private equity groups. "Combining the Travel Channel with […]
STV, Scotland’s ITV licensee, has launched a £35m (E39m) legal action against ITV plc that includes claims of abuses in TV ad sales and video-on-demand rights. Also, the company said that the failure to secure a recommission of Taggart across the ITV network meant that the company will take a £2m hit in earnings and […]
DirecTV Group was one of the few pay-TV companies to gain subscribers in the third quarter, though earnings stayed steady because of the higher costs it incurred attracting and serving those new customers. DirecTV said that a marketing partnership with AT&T accounted for most of the increase in US subscribers. DirecTV said that net income […]
Comcast Corp’s quarterly profit rose 22 percent, beating expectations, as it sold more phone and Internet subscriptions, helping the top U.S. cable operator fight competition from phone and satellite companies for video subscribers. It reported 361,000 new high-speed Internet customers and 375,000 new digital phone subscribers in the third quarter, offsetting the loss of 132,000 […]
Time Warner raised its profit outlook for 2009 boosted by better than expected results at its cable channels and films division, even as it reported a 40 per cent lower net income for the third quarter. The owner of CNN and the Warner Bros movie studio said it will take a $100 million charge for […]
SeeSaw, Arquiva's VoD service based on Kangaroo technology, has appointed Channel 4’s Matt Rennie as commercial director. Previously, Rennie worked in a business development role at Channel 4, where he led content distribution, managing commercial relations with distribution partners such as YouTube and Virgin Media. He joins a senior SeeSaw management team that includes chief […]
Paramount has sent a blunt letter to the FCC outlining its view on online piracy. It notes that it has evidence that following the worldwide release of Star Trek the movie was illegally downloaded by some 5 million IP addresses, each taking their files from one of six copies of the film illegally recorded by […]
The video search company blinkx is offering increased stakes to existing shareholders to raise £5 million (E5.5n) after burning through £13 million of its cash reserve in the past year on infrastructure costs. blink has seen its cash reserve plummet from $32 million to $10.7 million in the year to the end of September. In […]
According to the NYT NBC and Comcast have moved closer to a deal giving control of NBC Universal to Comcast, and a formal announcement could be made sometime next week. It says the two companies reached a tentative agreement that Comcast would own about 51 percent of NBC Universal, contributing several billions of dollars in […]
Cisco has announced a definitive agreement to acquire the set-top box business of DVN Limited. Listed in Hong Kong with major operations in China, DVN is a market and technology expert in digital cable solutions in China. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay up to $44.5 million for the set-top box business […]