BSkyB has delivered profit gains in the last quarter as more customers signed up for its high-definition digital services. Pre-tax profits rose 13% to £63m (E70m) between January and March. It added 243,000 customers for its Sky+HD service, but with churn the net gain down to 80,000 new customers. Revenue was up to £1.4bn, from […]
Viacom profits fell 34 per cent in the first quarter, hurt by a global advertising spending slowdown. The company reported first quarter net profit of $177m, down from $270m, a year earlier. Revenue fell 7 per cent to $2.91bn. Advertising at Viacom's cable networks, which as a sector is considered the most resilient compared with […]
The board of directors of struggling satellite radio provider Sirius XM has approved a “stockholder rights plan” that would effectively prevent the weakened company from hostile takeovers. According to the terms of the plan, known in financial circles as a poison pill, any attempt to buy up more than 4.9 per cent of Sirius’ stock […]
Australia's biggest investment bank, Macquarie Group, has reported its first fall in full-year profits in 17 years. Net profit in the year to 31 March fell by 52% to A$871m ($635m). It also cut A$2.5bn ($1.8 billion) from the value of its assets because of the global financial crisis. The bank said it had cash […]
Comcast reported improving subscriber losses and nearly doubling its free cash flow for the quarter. Comcast said it lost 78,000 subscribers in the period – slightly worse than the 57,000 lost in the first quarter of 2008 but better than analyst consensus estimates of a 171,000 subscriber loss. Revenue rose 5.3% to $8.8 billion and […]
Freeview has appointed Tim Hunt as Director of Marketing Communications. Hunt replaces Rob Farmer who joins ITV as Director of Viewer Marketing at the beginning of May. As Director of Marketing Communications, Hunt will be responsible for shaping and leading the integrated marketing and PR campaigns for Freeview, the UK's largest television platform. Before taking […]
Central European Media Enterprises (CME) has announced less than impressive financial results for the three months ended March 31st, 2009. Net revenues for the first quarter of 2009 were $141.2 million, a decrease of 37 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2008. Operating income for the quarter fell $130 million to a loss […]
Richard Li has thrown in the towel on a proposed $2bn buyout of PCCW, his Hong Kong telecommunications company after a protracted legal battle, saying the saga has been "unnecessarily divisive to society". Li and state-owned China Unicom, PCCW's second-largest shareholder, said they would let the controversial HK$4.50 a share offer lapse and pay investors […]
German pay-TV group Premiere has completed a E450 million capital increase, which saw Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp raise its stake from 25 per cent to 30.5 per cent. The company announced the two-step rights issue in December in order to fund last autumn’s purchase of rights to show live Bundesliga soccer. ….
ITV is to begin the search for a new chief executive, with Michael Grade relinquishing this responsibility and staying on at the company solely as chairman a year earlier than planned. The commercial broadcaster said it would have a new chief executive in place by the end of 2009 at the latest, by which time […]